Showing results by author "Bryan Caplan" in All Categories

Despite being immensely popular - and immensely lucrative - education is grossly overrated. In this explosive book, Bryan Caplan argues that the primary function of education is not to enhance students' skill but to certify their intelligence, work ethic, and conformity - in other words, to signal the qualities of a good employee.

In the title essay, Caplan challenges the conventional view that we treat women less fairly than men. Men predominate at the bottom, as well as the top of society. Performance gaps, not unfairness, are the best explanation. Feminism succeeds because it is false: society cares more when women suffer. Much more.

Caplan gives listeners a tantalizing bundle of puzzling questions. Why is illegal immigration so low? What's the harm of banning jerky employers? How lazy are professors, really? He provides a long list of contrarian answers. Immigration is grossly underrated. Education is grossly overrated. "If you don't like it, quit" does far more for workers than government ever has.

How Evil Are Politicians? explores how leaders manipulate voters to amass power. Above all, successful demagogues appeal to the social desirability bias.

The greatest obstacle to sound economic policy is not entrenched special interests or rampant lobbying, but the popular misconceptions, irrational beliefs, and personal biases held by ordinary voters. This is economist Bryan Caplan's sobering assessment in this provocative and eye-opening book.

In this summary of Labor Econ Versus the World, learn Caplan’s views and opinions on concepts and theories that have kept great minds bewildered and the average person stupefied. What is the weird reason to have more kids? What does the term man-child mean? Should job-seekers bargain harder? Caplan openly and honestly reveals his thoughts on each of these puzzling and yet obvious answers. In this brief one-hour summary of Labor Econ Versus the World, the narrator deftly shares the author’s thoughts and views on these and many other topics.