Deserving Poor

I like a great deal of Bryan Caplan's work, and what I like I like a great deal, but it seems to me he makes a significant inferential error in this recent EconLog post. Caplan notes that "71% of poor families with children are headed by single parents. About 80% of all long-term poverty occurs …

Marriage Equality. What is the Second Best Solution?

The Supremes are to hear two cases this week (California’s Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act) that will speak directly to the issue of marriage equality. The issue is an interesting one for conservatives and libertarians. Traditionally, social conservatives have embraced states’ rights and heterosexual marriage. The problem, of course, is that states' …

Caplan on Parenting and Having Children

One of the books I read this summer was Bryan Caplan's Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Why Being a Great Parent Is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think. Having already read works like Judith Rich Harris's excellent books The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do and No Two Alike: Human …

Support for Gay Marriage Now the Majority Position, Say Several Polls

Popular support for gay marriage has been rapidly increasing in the last two years, and several polls now show that support for gay marriage is a plurality or majority position in the American public, according to research by Nate Silver. This shift in public opinion is happening far too rapidly to be due to generational …

Protected: Beyond Monogamy? The Future of Marriage

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.