Labor Econ Versus the World

Essays on the World's Greatest Market

[Amazon Link]
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Bryan Caplan is on my short list of Trusted Thinkers. My default attitude toward those folks: If I disagree with them, there's a very good chance I'm wrong. I've previously read his previous books Open Borders, The Case Against Education, and The Myth of the Rational Voter. All quite good and recommended. (He has another one, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, but it came out when that was no longer an option for me.)

This self-published book is probably not for everyone; it's a collection of (approximately) 59 "essays" on the topics in which he's most interested:

  1. Labor Economics: he's not a fan of labor regulation, including especially the minimum wage;
  2. Open Borders: a supplement to the book cited above, fleshing out his desires to greatly liberalize national immigration policy:
  3. Education: why he thinks college is a waste of time and money for most;
  4. Family/Personal Economics: looking at why (for example) married men make more money than single men, but married women make less than single women.

Most of these "essays" are recycled blog posts from Caplan's days at EconLog. (He now has his own substack.) So I've probably read most of them before.

But I didn't mind tossing a few shekels Bryan's way via Amazon. And it was a fun read, despite the repetition.


Last Modified 2024-01-17 9:31 AM EDT