Douglass North

I went back to graduate school with the clear intention that what I wanted to do with my life was to improve…

— Douglass North

To predict the future we would have to know today what we will learn tomorrow which will shape our future actions

— Douglass North

The evolution of government from its medieval, Mafia-like character to that embodying modern legal institutions and instruments is a major part of…

— Douglass North

I went to elementary school in Ottawa, and then to a private secondary school.

— Douglass North

Information costs are reduced by the existence of large numbers of buyers and sellers. Under these conditions, prices embody the same information…

— Douglass North

My early work and publications centered around expanding on the analysis of life insurance in my dissertation and its relationship to investment…

— Douglass North

Conformity can be costly in a world of uncertainty which requires innovative institutional creation because no one can know the right path…

— Douglass North

When it came time to go to college, I had been accepted for Harvard when my father was offered the position of…

— Douglass North

I would be remiss if I left the impression that my life has been totally preoccupied with scholarly research.

— Douglass North

In 1972 I married again, to Elisabeth Case; she continues to be wife, companion, critic and editor: a partner in the projects…

— Douglass North

The development of a political-economic framework to explore long-run institutional change occupied me during all of the 1980s and led to the…

— Douglass North

I continue to be a photographer; I have enjoyed fishing and hunting with a close friend; and have owned two ranches, first…

— Douglass North

My brother and sister are both older than I am and were born before my father went off to World War I.

— Douglass North

I learned to fly an airplane, and had my own airplane during the 1960s.

— Douglass North

I was opposed to World War II, and indeed on June 22, 1941 when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union I suddenly found…

— Douglass North

I had hoped to go to law school, but the war started, and because of the strong feeling that I did not…

— Douglass North

My father had not even completed high school when he started as an office boy working for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company,…

— Douglass North

It was not until I got my first job, at the University of Washington in Seattle, and began playing chess with Don…

— Douglass North

Economists have the correct insight that economics is a theory of choice, the key to the story is the variety of options…

— Douglass North

Regarding social order, [Francis] Fukuyama writes, "The systematic study of how order, and thus social capital, can emerge in spontaneous and decentralized…

— Douglass North

The supremacy of Parliament and the embedding of property rights in Common Law put political power in the hands of men anxious…

— Douglass North

My record at the University of California as an undergraduate was mediocre to say the best.

— Douglass North

My wife and I now live in the summers in northern Michigan in an environment which is wonderfully conducive to research, and…

— Douglass North

While I was there I became deeply interested in photography, and indeed the most noteworthy event in my early life was winning…

— Douglass North

What the war did was give me the opportunity of three years of continuous reading, and it was in the course of…

— Douglass North