Economist Quotes

Historians are pessimistic by nature, because the only future they can imagine is the past.

Robert Skidelsky, Baron Skidelsky

Being both entrepreneurial and social is no longer an oxymoron, but rather a tautology.

We next consider the rule that the investor does or should consider expected return a desirable thing and variance of return an undesirable thing.

Harry Markowitz

The creation of economic stories from real life is an ongoing process—because new stories appear every day.

Daniel S. Hamermesh

Some owners are competent, effective business people who care about the game. Many others do not share these attributes.

Andrew Zimbalist

The Chinese and their government are wedded to a different conception of society and polity: community-based rather than individualist, state-centric rather than liberal, authoritarian rather than democratic. China has 2,000 years of history as a distinct civilization from which to draw strength. It will not simply fold under Western values and institutions.

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

Every article authored in a prestigious journal in a scholars field of study is like a notch in the six-gun of an Old West gun-fighter, a proof of talent and visible building block of the academic intellectual's reputation pyramid.

Martin Anderson (economist)

"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

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

It's the new management's job to look at the world as it changes, and how do we look at change and take advantage of change, rather than put our head in the ground.

Sanford I. Weill

[Functionalism is a] dividing up of activities as to kinds.

Politicians use research findings the way a drunk uses a lamppost: for support, not for illumination.

Jared Bernstein

In the future a typical factory will host three workers: a man, a computer and a dog. The computer will do all the work. The man will feed the dog. And the dog's job? To bite the man - if he touches the computer.

Todd G. Buchholz

Any one country can be in any of four possible disequilibrium situations. It can be (1) a surplus country with a domestic slump, (2) a surplus country with a domestic boom, (3) a deficit country with a domestic slump, or (4) a deficit country with a domestic boom.

Even during the period when Rome lost much of her ancient prestige, an Indian traveler observed that trade all over the world was operated with the aid of Roman gold coins which were accepted and admired everywhere.

No arbitrary regulation, no act of the legislature, can add anything to the capital of the country; it can only force it into artificial channels.

John Ramsay McCulloch

If a man marries his housekeeper or his cook, the national dividend is diminished.

Arthur Cecil Pigou

Without recognising indivisibilities — in human person, in residences, plants, equipment, and in transportation — location patterns, down to those of the smallest village, cannot be understood

Tjalling Koopmans

The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.

Common sense tells us that the world is flat, that the sun goes around the earth, that heavy bodies always fall faster than light bodies, that boats made of iron will sink.

The precision of their goals allows conceptual artists to be satisfied that they have produced one or more works that achieve a particular purpose... a problem solved can free him to pursue new goals.

Realistically, it will be a case of muddling through, struggling from one crisis to the next. It is difficult to forecast how long this will continue for, but it cannot go on endlessly. Governments will pile up more debt — and then one day, the house of cards will collapse.

Now it is time to encourage the BIS and other regulatory bodies to support studies on stress-test and concentration methodologies. Planning for crises is more important than VAR analysis.

There [is]... a list of five tests which any body of doctrine which aspires to the name of economic theory must be able to meet:

Walton Hale Hamilton