Economists Quotes · Page 4

What Disneyland was to my kids at age 10, that's kind of what Chicago is for economists.

— Austan Goolsbee

Economists have allowed themselves to walk into a trap where we say we can forecast, but no serious economist thinks we can.

— Tim Harford

The track record of economists in predicting events is monstrously bad. It is beyond simplification; it is like medieval medicine.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Leading economists have shown that by shrinking Texas, we can actually create more income for Texas in the long run.

— Ian Frazier

If all the economists in the world were laid end to end, it wouldn't be a bad thing.

— Peter Lynch

“I think you have to be a mathematician to appreciate how full of shit economists are, how astrological their equations are.”

— Cory Doctorow

If you put two economists xin a room, you get two opinions, unless one of them is Lord Keynes, in which case…

— Winston Churchill

I guess economists, it’s a bit like scientists, you have definitely fewer women in that field,

— Christine Lagarde

Economists get impatient with philosophy. They are often trained as skilled mathematicians. They don't like going back to ordinary language and first…

— Martha C. Nussbaum

In the 1940s, economics started getting highly mathematical. It was basically because economists weren't smart enough to write down models of real…

— Richard Thaler

The reality is that we are all economists. We all deal with scarcity as we make choices and calculate how to ration…

— Kurt Bills

The traditional story of economists has been to say education explains what the returns are to school. I say, 'Okay, that's fine,…

— James Heckman

You cannot prove this in real time, but when economists 20 years from now write a book on the recovery, it may…

— Jamie Dimon

“They (economists) must set aside their contempt for other disciplines and their absurd claim to greater scientific legitimacy, despite the fact that…

— Thomas Piketty

The unpopularity of economics is the result of its analysis of the effects of privileges. It is impossible to invalidate the economists…

— Ludwig von Mises

Economists tend to think they are much, much smarter than historians, than everybody. And this is a bit too much because at…

— Thomas Piketty

“according to the economists, the function of the state was not merely one of ruling the nation, but also that of recasting…

— Alexis de Tocqueville

One of the profound effects of economics in our day is that the people with the money and the power have embraced…

— Jane Smiley

One of the most important skills of the economist, therefore, is that of simplification of the model. Two important methods of simplification…

— Kenneth E. Boulding

One intriguing subplot of the economic crisis is the failure of most economists to predict it. Here we have the most spectacular…

— Robert J. Samuelson

Mathematical economics is old enough to be respectable, but not all economists respect it. It has powerful supporters and impressive testimonials, yet…

— James R Newman

“Economists are not responsible for the wealth of nations, but they can be responsible for the poverty of nations. This is an…

— Peter J. Boettke

Our popular economics writers, however, are not in the business of giving their readers a ringside seat on the research action; with…

— Paul Krugman

“We both approach the world as economists, and as economists resigned to - and sometimes even reveling in - the character defect…

— Steven Landsburg

Economists think about what people ought to do. Psychologists watch what they actually do.

— Daniel Kahneman

The economy depends about as much on economists as the weather does on weather forecasters.

— Jean-Paul Kauffmann

Economists are very good at saying that something cannot go on forever, but not so good at saying when it will stop.

— Herbert Stein

Economists must always be prepared for surprises: they find many in trying to find order in the universe of their study.

— Simon Kuznets

Our biggest challenge is to eliminate the popular perception that economists don't have anything useful to say.

— Mark Zandi

You know economists; they're the sort of people who see something works in practice and wonder if it would work in theory.

— Ronald Reagan

Despite the high salaries involved, employing economists is a cost-effective way for banks, and stockbrokers to secure exposure in the media.

— Paul Ormerod

I have always been considered to be the most German among Italian economists, which I always received as a compliment, but was…

— Mario Monti

There is much more to life than what gets measured in accounts. Even economists know that.

— Tim Harford

Economists who speak the English tongue are strangely intimidated by mathematical symbols.

— Al Nichol

Most economists, including me, agree that longevity insurance would make sense for a lot of people.

— Richard Thaler

“Experiment and reason, tempered by intuition, were to him preferable to solid plodding in the well-trodden paths of experience.”

— Richard Davenport-Hines

Fortunately, economists open to new ways of thinking are finding novel ways to use supposedly irrelevant factors to make the world a…

— Richard Thaler

Economists talk about profit motive, but nothing motivates modern man more than a chance to avoid taxes!

— Peter Drucker

It is a misfortune of the times that all of us must needs be amateur economists-including, and perhaps especially, the professionals.

— Benjamin Graham

Economists actually disagree about whether there are significant economic returns from attending an elite college versus a less-selective one.

— Emily Oster