The most recent issue of Foreign Affairs has some worthwhile articles in it. Daniel Drezner writes on The Outsourcing Bogeyman, and here is the money shot:

When forced to choose between statistical evidence showing that trade is good for the economy and anecdotal evidence of job losses due to import competition, Americans go with the anecdotes.

Philip Longman also has a piece titled The Global Baby Bust (not online) which notes that cultures that have a low fertility rate tend to have parents who do not wish to risk their sons in war. What does this have to do with anything related to this blog? It's all about the EEA, after all, in groups of ~100 anecdotes are more powerful than statistics, and the difference in behavior of parents with 10 children vs. those with 1 child is easy to understand. The latter has important consequences for imaginings of a belligerent China in the 21st century, as the "little emperors" might be too precious for their parents to sacrifice on the altar of national glory.