Vernon Smith: That economic agents can achieve efficient outcomes which are not part of their intention was the key principle articulated by Adam Smith, but few outside of the Austrian and Chicago traditions believed it, circa 1956. Certainly I was not primed to believe it, having been raised by a socialist mother, and further handicapped …
Category Archive: Quotes
Permanent link to this article: http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2008/11/01/quote-6-vernon-smith-unconscious-optimisation/
Oct 26 2008
Quote: 5) Lionel Robbins – definition of economics
Lionel Robbins (*): Economics is a science which studies human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses This is the fundamental definition of economics that I adher to when I write here. In all honesty this is not the sole definition of what people “see” economics as – however, …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2008/10/26/quote-5-lionel-robbins-definition-of-economics/
Oct 25 2008
Quote: 4) Kevin D Hoover – Is the representitive agent model really “micro-foundations”
Kevin D Hoover: The claim that representative-agent models provide micro-foundations succeeds only when we steadfastly avoid the fact that reporesentative-agent models are just as aggregative as old-fashioned Keynesian macroeconometric models Kevin Hoover is a professor at Duke University. I put down this quote as I believe that the modern day process of macroeconomics is likely …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2008/10/25/quote-4-kevin-d-hoover-is-the-representitive-agent-model-really-micro-foundationa/
Oct 19 2008
Quote 3) Frederic Bastiat: Cause and effects
Frederic Bastiat: In the economic sphere an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects. Of these effects, the first alone is immediate; it appears simultaneously with its cause; it is seen. The other effects emerge only subsequently; they are not seen; we are fortunate if …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2008/10/19/quote-3-frederic-bastiat-cause-and-effects/
Oct 12 2008
Quotes: 2) Lionel Robbins on “historical indication absent theory”
Lionel Robbins: In the absence of rational grounds for supposing intimate connection, there would be no sufficient reason for supposing that history “would repeat itself”. For if there is one thing which is shown by history, not less than by elementary logic, it is that historical induction unaided by the analytical judgment, is the worst …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2008/10/12/quotes-2-lionel-robbins/
Oct 11 2008
Quotes: 1) John Maynard Keynes on “the master economist”
John Maynard Keynes: … the master-economist must possess a rare combination of gifts. He must be mathematician, historian, statesman, philosopher–in some degree. He must understand symbols and speak in words. He must contemplate the particular in terms of the general, and touch abstract and concrete in the same flight of thought. He must study the …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2008/10/11/quotes-1-john-maynard-keynes-on-the-master-economist/
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