Bryan Caplan explica:
Thus, the least pleasant places in the world to live normally have three features in common: First, low economic growth; second, policies that discourage growth; and third, resistance to the idea that other policies would be better. I have a theory to explain this curious combination.3Imagine that the three variables I just named—growth, policy, and ideas—capture the essence of a country’s economic/political situation. Then suppose that three “laws of motion” govern this system. The first two are almost true by definition:
- 1. Good ideas cause good policies.
- 2. Good policies cause good growth.
The third law is much less intuitive:
- 3. Good growth causes good ideas.
The third law only dawned on me when I was studying the public’s beliefs about economics,4 and noticed that income growth seems to increase economic literacy, even though income level does not. (…)
(…) The bad news is that you can also get mired in the opposite outcome. A society can get stuck in an “idea trap,” where bad ideas lead to bad policy, bad policy leads to bad growth, and bad growth cements bad ideas.
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