I’m an economist by training. I don’t really work as an economist. I only worked briefly as an economist.
An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn’t happen.
I’m an economist, not a political scientist.
For economist the real world is often a special case.
Stiglitz is not a Left economist. Indeed, it would be difficult to find a more authentic insider and establishment figure than Stiglitz.
The data are what matter in economics, and the more ruthlessness that an economist can summon to make sense of the data, the more useful his findings will be.
I have ‘The Economist’ and the ‘New Scientist’ on my bedside table – and ‘GQ,’ of course.
I stay up on current events. I read ‘The New Yorker’ and ‘The Economist.’ I go to community meetings to see what concerns the people in my neighborhood. I studied literature in college, so I also continue to read poetry, literature, and novels.
What the war did was give me the opportunity of three years of continuous reading, and it was in the course of reading that I became convinced that I should become an economist.
‘Freakonomics’ began with a ‘N.Y. Times Magazine’ profile I wrote about Steve Levitt. I was working on a book about ‘the psychology of money,’ and since Levitt’s an economist, my editor thought I’d be the guy to write about him. Fact is that Levitt has almost no interest in either psychology or money.
I’ve met Dick Syron. I like the guy. He’s a man’s man kind of character, a real charmer, the kind of guy you’d want to have a beer with, as well as being an economist of considerable repute.
Leo Hurwicz is the father of mechanism design theory and has inspired much of my work, and Roger Myerson is an old friend and collaborator and a tremendous economist.
I like to read the ‘Financial Times’ when I’m traveling. ‘Economist.’ ‘Ad Busters.’
As an economist specializing in the global economy, international trade and debt, I have spent most of my career helping others make big decisions – prime ministers, presidents and chief executives – and so I’m all too aware of the risks and dangers of poor choices in the public as well as the private sphere.
It became clear I wanted to be a development economist. I mean, I said I wanted to work on the economics of poor countries. And I’d actually say that I don’t think that was so much about narrowing the gap as about increasing their incomes, which means economic growth, which is really my prime interest.
When economist William Beveridge dreamed up the postwar welfare state he wanted to fight five ‘giant evils’ – want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness. Fast forward 65 years and it seems the last New Labour government grew an Unfair State that fuelled – not fought – one of those evils: idleness.
The Princeton economist Alan Krueger has demonstrated that societies with higher levels of income inequality are societies with lower levels of social mobility.
I am an economist, not an astrologer.
My dad is an economist who does global development research. What he practices is a kind of quantifiable empathy: trying to empathize with systems rather than people.
Economists have allowed themselves to walk into a trap where we say we can forecast, but no serious economist thinks we can. You don’t expect dentists to be able to forecast how many teeth you’ll have when you’re 80. You expect them to give good advice and fix problems.
I don’t think exactly like a professional economist. I think about economics and economic ideas, but somewhat like an outsider.
Being an economist is the least ethical profession, closer to charlatanism than any science.
I never said that demonetization is a wrong decision, I am not an economist, but I said that the way it was implemented was not right.
I don’t know of a single economist who disagrees that when you raise the minimum wage, you kill jobs for the poor.
When I meet people on airplanes and they find out I’m an economist, they usually ask about stock tips.
The Economist is undoubtedly the smartest weekly newsmagazine in the English language. I always look forward to its quirky year-end double issue.
The main thing that you learn in grad school, or should learn, is how to think like an economist. The rest is just math.
Almost every economist agrees that the American health care system is unsustainable. Medical care is so expensive that it is busting all of our budgets – government, business, and personal. Eventually, the medical price bubble will pop. What, then, are the alternatives?
I’m not an economist, but I have spent time around thousands of small-business owners and investors, and I remain skeptical – despite the best intentions of the Fed – that even lower interest rates can make a meaningful dent in our unemployment problem.
A natural way that an economist approaches a problem is to say, here’s where I think the economy is going; this is what we need to deal with the problem.
The idea of a non-growing economy may be an anathema to an economist. But the idea of a continually growing economy is an anathema to an ecologist.
The economist John Maynard Keynes said that in the long run, we are all dead. If he were around today he might say that, in the long run, we are all on Social Security and Medicare.
I need something to fall back on if fame doesn’t work. I’ll have to become an economist or something.
I’m not an economist and we all know economists were created to make weather forecasters look good.
Government is the ultimate monopoly. And monopolies, as any economist will tell you, often breed complacency and a lack of innovation.
My colleague Bill Keegan has written a very short book (‘Saving the World?’) on an unlikely topic – he is the first economist to try to rehabilitate Gordon Brown.
For economist the real world is often a special case.
Economists have allowed themselves to walk into a trap where we say we can forecast, but no serious economist thinks we can.
I never understand why ‘economist makes forecast’ is ever a headline. Whether the economist in question is from the International Monetary Fund, a City forecasting group or the Treasury – a forecast is still not news.
My father is an economist who specialized in foreign food policy, and my mother worked for AID, a branch of the State Department, so food in regards to world affairs was talked about a lot.
I think you’ve got to watch out for anybody in high school who says he wants to become an economist.
‘Freakonomics’ began with a ‘N.Y. Times Magazine’ profile I wrote about Steve Levitt. I was working on a book about ‘the psychology of money,’ and since Levitt’s an economist, my editor thought I’d be the guy to write about him. Fact is that Levitt has almost no interest in either psychology or money.
As an economist specializing in the global economy, international trade and debt, I have spent most of my career helping others make big decisions – prime ministers, presidents and chief executives – and so I’m all too aware of the risks and dangers of poor choices in the public as well as the private sphere.
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