Economists create their own worlds. We’re like little gods with our artificial economics, wanting to see what happens.
The good news is that economists are intelligent, engaging and often charming folks. The bad news is their work is often of little use to investors.
Unlike physics, economists don’t settle things. There seems to be plenty of room for different conclusions that are still accepted in the academy.
Economists often like startling theorems, results which seem to run counter to conventional wisdom.
I believe that economists put decimal points in their forecasts to show they have a sense of humor.
Our biggest challenge is to eliminate the popular perception that economists don’t have anything useful to say.
I think behavioral economists don’t have any more of an explanation about the rise of Trump than anyone else.
Ever since economists revealed how much universities contribute to economic growth, politicians have paid close attention to higher education.
My fellow economists and academics fail to understand the economics of trade in the real world. Traditional models of academia respect free trade without considering whether it is fair trade.
I am often considered almost not a part of the profession of Establishment economists. I am even referred to as a sociologist. And by that, economists usually do not mean anything flattering.
Leading economists have shown that by shrinking Texas, we can actually create more income for Texas in the long run.
I can’t speak for them, of course, but I believe that most economists would accept the view that, while you sometimes can make a score by sheer luck, you can’t do it constantly, unless you’re willing to put the resources in.
In the 1940s, economics started getting highly mathematical. It was basically because economists weren’t smart enough to write down models of real behavior that they started writing down models of highly rational behavior – and they kind of forgot about humans.
More than any other issue, economists have kind of been boosters for trade.
Markets work well with goods that economists call private goods.
We want an economic team, Paul Krugman and Robert Kuttner, Joseph Steiglitz’s people and others, who say, you know what? We’re sophisticated economists but we’re concerned about poor and working people.
Ask five economists and you’ll get five different answers – six if one went to Harvard.
With respect to the first of these obstacles, it has often been made a matter of grave complaint against Political Economists, that they confine their attention to Wealth, and disregard all consideration of Happiness or Virtue.
I don’t think quantitative easing is deliberately misleading, but I do think it’s suspiciously bland and reassuring. It doesn’t sound like anything big, experimental, scary and strange – which is what many economists think it is.
Discovering various economists, economic works, reading financial periodicals and keeping up on current events in geopolitics and economics around the world opened my eyes to many facets of how the extended order works.
People who are rich find it hard to understand the behavior of poor people. Economists are no exception, for they, too, find it difficult to comprehend the preferences and scarcity constraints that determine the choices that poor people make.
Raising the minimum wage seems to all economists to, at the very least, fail to ‘raise’ employment, and we’d all like to see better inclusion of low-skilled workers into good-paying jobs.
Free market economists frequently see minimum wage legislation as mere political intervention. However, there are decent economic theories which show that, under certain circumstances, minimum wages can be beneficial, as it makes workers more productive.
A study by Treasury economists estimated that a country with a tax rate one percentage point lower than another country’s attracts 3 percent more capital. It’s not surprising then, that average OECD corporate tax rates have trended steadily downward.
Everything is possible, from angels to demons to economists and politicians.
To economists, prices serve as crucial signals to producers and consumers. In a regulated market, the state sets prices high enough for private companies to cover their costs and earn a guaranteed profit for their investors. But in a deregulated market, prices should vary with demand and supply.
Economists typically think that your happiness goes up as you get more money, but the more you have, the less each additional dollar matters. This means that you value money most in times when you have less income and more expenses.
