American Economist Quotes

Every improvement in our conceptions of justice, as well as in the machinery for the administration of justice, whereby a closer approximation to exact justice may be secured, will make for social peace, though the mere adjudication of conflicting interests will not remove the conflicts themselves nor their cause. That lies deeper than legislatures or courts can probe.

Thomas Nixon Carver

Without popular fear, no government would endure more than twenty-four hours.

Just as there can be little doubt that labor unions are a significant political force, neither can there be much question that this political force is a by-product of the purely industrial activities that unions regard as their major function.

James Buchanan … produced several seminal contributions to the literature prior to the appearance of The Calculus, and a continual stream of books and articles afterward. I view Buchanan's Nobel Prize as a reward for this great body of work, and not just limited to The Calculus. Pursuing this line of reasoning, Gordon Tullock's prodigious research output following the publication of The Calculus also justifies a Nobel Prize. Indeed, Tullock's (1967c) seminal analysis of rent seeking, and his subsequent work on this topic might be regarded as sufficient achievements for the awarding of a prize.

Converting a classic batch-and-queue production system to continuous flow with effective pull by the customer will double labor productivity all the way through the system (for direct, managerial, and technical workers, from raw materials to delivered product) while cutting production throughput times by 90 percent and reducing inventories in the system by 90 percent as well.

James P. Womack

Economics is all about how people make choices. Sociology is all about why they don't have any choices to make.

James Duesenberry

In scientific experimentation we control everything that happens. We determine when it shall occur and where. We arrange circumstances and surroundings, atmosphere and temperatures; possible ways of getting in and possible ways of getting out. We take something that has been in, or put in something that has been out, and see what happens.

Franklin Henry Giddings

Inclusive economic institutions require secure property rights and economic opportunities not just for the elite but for a broad cross-section of society.

Daron Acemoğlu

Almost anything one says or has said about what society wants or should get is threatened with internal inconsistency.

Most of economics can be summarized in four words: 'People respond to incentives.' The rest is commentary.

Steven Landsburg

The scholars who understand it hesitate to speak out boldly for fear people will not understand. The people, who understand it quite easily, also fear to speak out while they wait for the scholars to speak out first. The difference between our present situation and that of the story is that it is not the emperor but the people who are periodically made to go naked and hungry and insecure and discontented - a ready prey to less timid organizers of discontent for the destruction of the civilization.

Social costs... are all direct and indirect losses sustained by third persons or the general public as a result of unrestrained economic activities.

Karl William Kapp

Each of us, Leonard Read said, must become candles of liberty in the darkness of collectivist ideas. The brighter we each shine through our understanding and ability to articulate the meaning of freedom, the more we will be beacons that can attract others.

Richard Ebeling

The target for a retracement following a fifth wave often is doubly indicated by the end of the preceding fourth wave and the 382 retracement point.

Robert Prechter

Most people in Britain did not enthusiastically engage in wage labor—at least so long as they had an alternative. To make sure that people accepted wage labor, the classical political economists actively advocated measures to deprive people of their traditional means of support.

Michael Perelman

Instruct regulators to look for the newest fad in the industry and examine it with great care. The next mistake will be a new way to make a loan that will not be repaid.

L. William Seidman

"Any graduate of the ___ Business School should be able to beat an index fund over the course of a market cycle."
Statements such as these are made with alarming frequency by investment professionals. In some cases, subtle and sophisticated reasoning may be involved. More often (alas), the conclusions can only be justified by assuming that the laws of arithmetic have been suspended for the convenience of those who choose to pursue careers as active managers.

William F. Sharpe

It has long been speculated that money predates writing because the earliest examples of writing appear to be records of monetary debts—meaning that the closely intertwined chronology of the development of writing and money will make it impossible to find a written history.

L. Randall Wray

Early critics pointed out REH's fundamental epistemological flaws. … They argued that REH, even if viewed as a bold abstraction or approximation, is grossly inadequate for representing how even minimally reasonable profit seeking participants forecast the future in real-world markets. Nevertheless, … an overwhelming majority of economists has embraced REH as the way to represent how rational individuals think about the future.

Central to both the theoretical and the empirical validity of factor models is the correct specification of the number of factors.

Those who controlled private capital largely walked away from the US economy for the entire 1930s, refusing to pump in enough new investment even to replace the machinery and goods-in-process that were consumed during the decade.

Robert P. Murphy

Whenever there is some trouble in any area of the economy, the simplest solution to many people is "Let the government fix it." Yet... every time the government uses its money or its power to favor this group or that... the net result is such a web of supports, subsidies, interventions and controls that it is almost impossible for a nation to find its way back into a dynamic system of really free enterprise.

Lawrence Fertig

Marketing should focus on market creation, not market sharing

The job of the Federal Reserve is to take away the punch bowl just when the party is getting good.

William McChesney Martin

General advertising is Cyrano. He comes under your window and sings; people get used to it and ignore it. But if Roxane responds, there's a relationship. We move the brand relationship up a notch. Advertising becomes a dialogue that becomes an invitation to a relationship.

Lester Wunderman