The persistence of demand for economic irrationality, as expressed by the big success gained by the literature on no-globalism, is an empirical puzzle and the recent book by Naomi Klein The Shock Doctrine (2007) is a rampant example. An explanation for this anomaly is provided by the theory of rational irrationality (Caplan, 2007). While in the field of natural sciences confutation of wrong theories sets them apart forever, in the field of economics rebutted theories can still have an appeal on nonprofessional readers, even though the underlying theory has already been proved wrong. This is due to the low private cost of economic opinion and the big gain derived from the illusion of grasping complex economic phenomena.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number
9452.
Find related papers by JEL classification: A12 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior A11 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Role of Economics; Role of Economists
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Did you know? You can include your works in the database easily by uploading them on the Munich Personal RePEc Archive (MPRA) if you do not have access to an institutional RePEc archive.