Economics Quotes - Page 16

• Besides, do any of us understand what we are doing? If we did, would we ever do it?

  George Bernard Shaw

  Ifs

  George Bernard Shaw (2016). “Pygmalion”, p.28, Xist Publishing

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• There is a history of mathematical models of oligopolistic competition dating from Cournot to the theory of games. There is also a literature generated by institutional economists, lawyers, and administrators interested in formulating and implementing public policy. It has been the tendency of these groups to work almost as though the other did not exist.

  Martin Shubik

  Games, Dating, Competition

  Martin Shubik, Richard Levitan (1980). “Market structure and behavior”, Harvard Univ Pr

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• The discipline of colleges and universities is in general contrived, not for the benefit of the students, but for the interest, or more properly speaking, for the ease of the masters. Its object is, in all cases, to maintain the authority of the master, and whether he neglects or performs his duty, to oblige the students in all cases to behave toward him as if he performed it with the greatest diligence and ability.

  Adam Smith

  College, Discipline, Benefits

  'Wealth of Nations' (1776)

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• But part of the job of economics is weeding out errors. That is much harder than making them, but also more fun.

  Robert Solow

  Weed, Jobs, Fun

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• Where combination is possible, competition is impossible.

  George Stephenson

  Competition, Impossible, Combination

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• ...it is distressing how often one can guess the answer given to an economic question merely by knowing who asks it.

  George Stigler

  Knowing, Answers, Given

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• "Law professors were never like economics professors," a Harvard Law professor told me. "If you disagreed with someone, you didn't call him a fool."

  Calvin Trillin

  Law, Fool, Professors

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• To stick to the present situation would be something like a man who was observed in Times Square looking earnestly along the pavement. He was asked what he was looking for. He said "I lost my watch."

  William Vickrey

  Men, Squares, Watches

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• The consequences for human welfare involved in questions like these are simply staggering: once one starts to think about them, it is hard to think about anything else.

  Robert Lucas, Jr.

  Thinking, Economist, Hard

  "On the Mechanics of Economic Development". Journal of Monetary Economics, 22, 1988.

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• When I was a graduate student, estimating and interpreting distributed lags topped the agenda of macroeconomists and other applied economists.

  Thomas J. Sargent

  Estimating, Agendas, Lag

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• Scholars today are under increasing pressure to publish. Consequences of this pressure are incentives to deviate from the truth

  Bruno Frey

  Incentives, Today, Pressure

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• Economy is too late when you are at the bottom of your purse.

  Seneca the Younger

  Too Late, Purses, Economy

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• Give me a one-handed economist! All my economists say, On the one hand on the other.

  Harry S. Truman

  Business, Hands, Giving

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• Commerce has set the mark of selfishness, the signet of its all-enslaving power, upon a shining ore, and called it gold: before whose image bow the vulgar great, the vainly rich, the miserable proud, the mob of peasants, nobles, priests, and kings, and with blind feelings reverence the power that grinds them to the dust of misery.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Kings, Power, Dust

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1874). “The Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, p.10

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• Reformers have the idea that change can be achieved by brute sanity.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Ideas, Sanity, Brutes

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• When men are employed they are best contented.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Work, Men, Employed

  Benjamin Franklin (2008). “The Autobiography and Other Writings”, p.181, Bantam Classics

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• Investment is a flighty bird which needs to be controlled.

  Sir John Richard Hicks

  Bird, Needs, Investment

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• Nothing so weakens government as persistent inflation.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Government, Inflation

  "The affluent society".

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• Why does a public discussion of economic policy so often show the abysmal ignorance of the participants?

  Robert Solow

  Ignorance, Doe, Policy

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• We might as well reasonably dispute whether it is the upper or the under blade of a pair of scissors that cuts a piece of paper, as whether value is governed by demand or supply.

  Alfred Marshall

  Cutting, Pieces, Paper

  Alfred Marshall (2009). “Principles of Economics: Unabridged Eighth Edition”, p.290, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Lack of money is the root of of all evil.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Money, Roots, Greatest Wealth

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• The truth is never pure and rarely simple.

  Oscar Wilde

  Simple, Truth Is, Pure

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• Money is a machine for doing quickly and commodiously what would be done, though less quickly and commodiously, without it.

  John Stuart Mill

  Would Be, Machines, Done

  John Stuart Mill (1864). “Principles of Political Economy: With Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy”, p.23

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• There is always enough for the needy, there is never enough for the greedy.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Greedy, Enough, Needy

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• Inflation is like toothpaste. Once it's out, you can hardly get it back in again.

  Karl Otto Pohl

  Toothpaste, Inflation

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