Ha-Joon Chang

History is on the side of the regulators.

— Ha-Joon Chang

“Audite et alteram partem”

— Ha-Joon Chang

“95% of economics is common sense”

— Ha-Joon Chang

There is no such thing as a free market.

— Ha-Joon Chang

Culture changes with economic development.

— Ha-Joon Chang

Few countries have become rich through free-trade, free-market policies, and few ever will.

— Ha-Joon Chang

Financial markets need to become less, not more, efficient.

— Ha-Joon Chang

People 'over-produce' pollution because they are not paying for the costs of dealing with it.

— Ha-Joon Chang

“Markets weed out inefficient practices, but only when no one has sufficient power to manipulate them.”

— Ha-Joon Chang

“The welfare state is the bankruptcy law for workers”

— Ha-Joon Chang

Assume the worst about people and you get the worst.

— Ha-Joon Chang

“Running the company for the shareholders often reduces its long-term growth potential.”

— Ha-Joon Chang

The foundation of economic development is the acquisition of more productive knowledge.

— Ha-Joon Chang

“the demands of a highly organized industrial society made people behave in more disciplined, calculating and cooperative ways.”

— Ha-Joon Chang

By liberating women from household work and helping to abolish professions such as domestic service, the washing machine and other household goods…

— Ha-Joon Chang

“Gore Vidal, the American writer, once famously described the American economic system as ‘free enterprise for the poor and socialism for the…

— Ha-Joon Chang

Without there being some national strategy, it is difficult for educators to know what kinds of engineers or technicians to produce and…

— Ha-Joon Chang

There is a big logical jump between acknowledging the destructive nature of hyperinflation and arguing that the lower the rate of inflation,…

— Ha-Joon Chang

Indeed, willingness to challenge professional economists and other experts is a foundation stone of democracy. If all we have to do is…

— Ha-Joon Chang

It's not just about the current economic environment. History shows that slashing budgets always leads to recession.

— Ha-Joon Chang

As someone from a developing country, I have a problem with rich countries thinking they can tell us anything, simply because they…

— Ha-Joon Chang

“Sometimes it is in the long-run interest of the business sector to restrict the freedom of individual firms so that they do…

— Ha-Joon Chang

The history of capitalism has been so totally re-written that many people in the rich world do not perceive the historical double…

— Ha-Joon Chang

The truth is that the free movement of goods, people, and money that developed under British hegemony between 1870 and 1913 -…

— Ha-Joon Chang

The free market doesn't exist. Every market has some rules and boundaries that restrict freedom of choice. A market looks free only…

— Ha-Joon Chang

Sometimes people with strong ideology, whether left-wing or right-wing, refuse to do something simply because they believe it is wrong, when doing…

— Ha-Joon Chang

Imagine if all those kings and dukes hadn't commissioned those crazy cathedrals, paintings and music... we'd still be living in sticks and…

— Ha-Joon Chang

If we are really serious about preventing another crisis like the 2008 meltdown we should simply ban complex financial instruments, unless they…

— Ha-Joon Chang

Why do tax havens exist? Because rich countries allow them to. If the U.S. came down on tax havens in the same…

— Ha-Joon Chang

“De-industrialization also has a negative effect on a country’s balance of payments because services are inherently more difficult to export than manufactured…

— Ha-Joon Chang

“Trade liberalization has created other problems, too. It has increased the pressures on government budgets, as it reduced tariff revenues. This has…

— Ha-Joon Chang

“In no country does the average income give the right picture of how people live but in a country with higher inequality…

— Ha-Joon Chang

“The fact that de-industrialization is mainly caused by the comparative dynamism of the manufacturing sector vis-à-vis the service sector does not tell…

— Ha-Joon Chang

“Joseph Schumpeter emphasized that all analysis in economics is preceded by a pre-analytical cognitive act, called vision, in which the analyst ‘visualise[s]…

— Ha-Joon Chang

“So, when free-market economists say that a certain regulation should not be introduced because it would restrict the ‘freedom’ of a certain…

— Ha-Joon Chang

As South Korea shows, active participation in international trade does not require free trade. Indeed, had South Korea pursued free trade and…

— Ha-Joon Chang

All the alleged key causes of SOE [State-Owned Enterprise] inefficiency - the principal-agent problem, the free-rider problem and the soft budget constraint…

— Ha-Joon Chang

I don't drink at lunchtime because I'm very weak at alcohol like most Asians.

— Ha-Joon Chang

I like all kinds of music - classical, pop, rock, electronic.

— Ha-Joon Chang

Low inflation and government prudence may be harmful for economic development.

— Ha-Joon Chang