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The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2008

Jeffrey Friedman
Affiliation:
University of Texas at Austin

Extract

The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies. By Bryan Caplan. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007. 280p. $29.95.

Bryan Caplan's book could only have been written by an economist. This has a good side and a bad side. On the good side, Caplan makes an important contribution to the public-opinion literature by analyzing the American people's economic views—an area overlooked by most previous researchers. And he asks a crucial question: Are the public's economic views wrong?

Type
BOOK REVIEWS: POLITICAL THEORY
Copyright
© 2008 American Political Science Association

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