Economics Quotes

Transaction cost economics is, in the main, a comparative institutional exercise.

The measurement of poverty is not a purely technical exercise; it is also a moral and political one.

Humans are not trapped in a Prisoner's Dilemma. They can and do create institutions that enable them to achieve collective action.

Experimental economics is not just about testing theories; it's about discovering new phenomena and building new theories.

The problem of economic development is the problem of accounting for the observed diversity in the rates at which different countries grow.

There is only one thing worse than being exploited, and that is not being exploited.

Inflation is taxation without legislation.

History is a graveyard of aristocracies.

The pure theory of economics is a physico-mathematical science like mechanics or hydrodynamics.

The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.

The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.

The long-run rate of growth of output per head is determined by the rate of technical progress and the rate of growth of the labor force.

The most important of all the causes that determine the economic progress of a nation is the character of its people.

Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.

The modern corporation is a creature of the state, and it is the state that must ultimately control it.

Poverty is not just a lack of money; it is a lack of capability to live a full and flourishing life.

Rent is that portion of the produce of the earth, which is paid to the landlord for the use of the original and indestructible powers of the soil.

The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.

Creative destruction is the essential fact about capitalism.

There's no such thing as a free lunch.