The Political Economy of Social Desirability Bias By Bryan Caplan

Last week, I visited the University of Freiburg for a conference on behavioral political economy. My presentation: “The Political Economy of Social Desirability Bias: The Case of Education.” The first half, which summarizes The Case Against Education, will already be familiar to most EconLog readers. The second half, however, should seem new. I blend psychology and public choice to explain why education is almost universally politically popular despite the bountiful evidence in favor of the signaling model. Simple version: For all its faults, education simply sounds good.

My slides are here. Enjoy!

P.S. Alex Tabarrok presented a stand-out talk on what’s wrong with India. If anyone is going to fix India, it will be him…