Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I think what Bob Shiller and I are doing is we're focusing on macroeconomics and the role of psychology in macroeconomics.
In the West, the basic economic and social unit is the individual; in Africa, it is the extended family or the collective.
Firms are not always willing to cut wages, even if there are people lined up outside the gates to work. So why don't they?
The love of domination never attains more than a factitious elevation, that is sure to make enemies of all its neighbours.
If you feed enough oats to the horse, some will pass through to feed the sparrows (referring to "trickle down" economics).
According to the experience of all but the most accomplished jugglers, it is easier to keep one ball in the air than many.
When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals.
It is astonishing what foolish things one can temporarily believe if one thinks too long alone, particularly in economics.
Once we allow ourselves to be disobedient to the test of an accountant's profit, we have begun to change our civilization.
There is something, however humble, which can properly be called skill among those who recognise themselves as economists.
History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition.
Money is a very powerful thing, which you hardly notice when it goes right, but which can create havoc when it goes wrong.
The best way to help the poor is to slash taxes and allow savings, investment, and creation of jobs to proceed unhampered.
Placing the state in charge of moral principles is equivalent to putting the proverbial fox in charge of the chicken coop.
The 'boom-bust' cycle is generated by monetary intervention in the market, specifically bank credit expansion to business.
I felt Nigeria didn't have to succumb to the image of being a corrupt country; we didn't have to let the economy stagnate.
Middle-class societies don't emerge automatically as an economy matures, they have to be CREATED through political action.
An economy can survive with 10% of the population insolation. It can't survive when 50% of the population is in isolation.
Sooner or later the Internet will become profitable. It's an old story played before by canals, railroads and automobiles.
If we think that high marginal tax rates are bad because they distort incentives, the same is then true for tax subsidies.
Some of the biggest cases of mistaken identity are among intellectuals who have trouble remembering that they are not God.
'Global warming' is just the latest in a long line of hysterical crusades to which we seem to be increasingly susceptible.
There are only two economists in Congress and hundreds of lawyers. Does that explain why the government is in such a mess?
One of the most important skills for political success is the ability to make confident assertions of absurdities or lies.
Our schools and colleges are turning out people who cannot feel fulfilled unless they are telling other people what to do.
In point of substantial merit the law school belongs in the modern university no more than a school of fencing or dancing.
Heirs Holdings has the ambition to generate at least a quarter of Nigeria's power consumption needs in the next five years
Nothing in our Constitution suggests that government is a grantor of rights. Instead, government is a protector of rights.
Slavery was regarded by Aristotle as an ordinance of nature, and so probably was it by the slaves themselves in olden time.
Imparting education not only enlightens the receiver, but also broadens the giver - the teachers, the parents, the friends.
the identity of an individual is essentially a function of her choices, rather than the discovery of an immutable attribute
The market's been soft, .. and I think that's mostly a result of the new provisions in the collective bargaining agreement.
Under current law, on January 1, 2013, there's going to be a massive fiscal cliff of large spending cuts and tax increases.
In the future, my communications with the public and with the markets will be entirely through regular and formal channels.
Low and stable inflation in many countries is an important accomplishment that will continue to bring significant benefits.
The wheat bought by a farmer to sow is comparatively a fixed capital to the wheat purchased by a baker to make into loaves.
The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.
The election of Senator Barack Obama brought jubilation across Africa, where millions celebrated him as 'one of their own.'
Beyond monetary policy, fiscal policy has traditionally played an important role in dealing with severe economic downturns.
Where is the pricing system that offers the consumer a fair choice between air to breathe and motor cars to drive about in?
People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage.
It is not the individual's right to buy that is being protected. Rather, it is the seller's right to manage the individual.
If you owe your bank manager a thousand pounds, you are at his mercy. If you owe him a million pounds, he is at your mercy.
When, as an individual, you are not paying taxes, it is evasion. As a corporate, it is legal shrewdness or tax engineering.
For one thing, to predict the advent of big business was considering the conditions of Marx's day an achievement in itself.
While the banks got big bailouts, a sizeable chunk of African-American wealth evaporated because so many people lost homes.
Trayvon Martin could have been any of our sons, so I was not especially moved by that remark of President [Barack] Obama's.
The biggest change in the world today is that the young don’t learn from the old, they teach the old about the world today.
Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama all used temporarily targeted tariffs on specific industries.
You cannot be sure that you are right unless you understand the arguments against your views better than your opponents do.