Joan Robinson
A prominent Post-Keynesian economist who contributed to theories of imperfect competition and capital accumulation.
Quotes by Joan Robinson
The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.
There is only one thing worse than being exploited, and that is not being exploited.
The long run is a device for postponing the present.
The misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all.
The whole point of economics is to make sense of the world, not to make a model of it.
The function of economic theory is to show people how little they know about what is going on.
The only thing that can be said for certain about the future is that it will be different from the past.
The trouble with economic theory is that it is not about the real world.
The purpose of economic analysis is to discover what is going on, not to prove that a particular policy is right.
The more abstract the theory, the more likely it is to be wrong.
The main task of economics is to get rid of the idea that there is a 'natural' rate of interest or a 'natural' rate of unemployment.
The only way to learn economics is to do it.
The greatest enemy of truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived, and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.
The world is not a static equilibrium, but a process of continuous change.
The most important thing in economics is to understand that there are no simple answers.
The purpose of economic theory is to provide a method of analysis, not a body of substantive conclusions.
The real world is much more complicated than any economic model.
The only way to understand economics is to study history.
The greatest danger in economics is to mistake a model for reality.
The problem is not to make economic models more realistic, but to make them more useful.