Economists have understood since the Victorian era that the main benefits of trade come from comparative advantage: the idea that people can specialize in what they're good at and then benefit from exchange. The principle is no more mysterious than specialization in the labor market.

David Autor

Like many free market economists, with whom he had little else in common, Nehru seemed to believe that people will find a way to get their children educated.

Abhijit Banerjee

Sometimes economists are right, and sometimes economists are wrong.

Abhijit Banerjee

Happiness quantification sounds a bit wishy-washy, sure, and through a series of carefully administered surveys across the globe, economists and psychologists have certainly confronted a fair number of sticky issues around how to measure, and even define, happiness.

Adam Davidson

When you cover the economy as a reporter, there's one part of the job that is always easy: finding economists who disagree.

Adam Davidson

Perhaps concentrated wealth will inspire a nation of innovative problem-solvers. But if the view of many economists is right - that it sometimes discourages innovation - then we should worry.

Adam Davidson

The America that I think most Americans would want, most economists on the right or left would want, is one in which a smart, ambitious, hardworking person without a huge amount of resources has a pretty good shot, in the end, of beating out a less smart, less ambitious, less hardworking rich person.

Adam Davidson

Like a bottle of wine or a promising college quarterback turning pro, C.E.O.'s are similar to what economists call experience goods: you commit to a price long before you know if they're worth it.

Adam Davidson

Unlike physics, economists don't settle things. There seems to be plenty of room for different conclusions that are still accepted in the academy.

Adam Davidson

I don't think that much change comes from economists. I think it comes more from political realities. Probably the two giants of the 20th century, who actually did shift government policy in the U.S. and around the world, were John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman. I don't see anybody in our system who is at that level of influence.

Adam Davidson

Macroeconomics is the analysis of the economy as a whole, an examination of overall supply and demand. At the broadest level, macroeconomists want to understand why some countries grow faster than others and which government policies can help growth.

Alex Berenson

To economists, prices serve as crucial signals to producers and consumers. In a regulated market, the state sets prices high enough for private companies to cover their costs and earn a guaranteed profit for their investors. But in a deregulated market, prices should vary with demand and supply.

Alex Berenson

But if, if you take a look at what would have happened, I mean, do we need to see soup lines down the street to figure out what would have happened? We avoided - and all economists will tell you that millions of jobs were saved because of the Recovery Act, and we avoided a second Great Depression. That, that is a reality.

Alexi Giannoulias

We have lots of evidence that putting investments in early childhood education, even evidence from very hard-nosed economists, is one of the very best investments that the society can possibly make. And yet we still don't have public support for things like preschools.

Alison Gopnik

A lot of people are surprised economists are assisting with kidney exchanges. Exchanges are what economists are good at.

Alvin E. Roth

Since JPMorgan Chase announced its surprise $2 billion-and-growing trading loss, there have been renewed calls from economists, pundits, and politicians to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, a Depression-era law that prevented commercial banks from participating in investment banking activities.

Andrew Ross Sorkin

The greatest economic power might in fact remain in the hands of the Federal Reserve. Economists credit the Fed's policy of keeping interest rates at historic lows with helping to pump up the economy and bring unemployment down.

Andrew Ross Sorkin

In the 1970s, as historians became enchanted with microhistories, economists were expanding the reach of their discipline. Nations, states and cities began to plan for the future by consulting with economists whose prognostications were shaped by investment cycles rather than historical ones.

Annalee Newitz

Even as I pursued a doctorate in the history of ideas in my native Denmark, I realized I had neither the encyclopedic training nor the passion for cool logic - not to mention the nerve - to follow in the footsteps of classical liberal philosophers and economists such as Robert Nozick, Friedrich Hayek, and Milton Friedman.

Anne Fortier

As economists have often pointed out, we pay doctors for quantity, not quality. As they point out less often, we also pay them as individuals, rather than as members of a team working together for their patients. Both practices have made for serious problems.

Atul Gawande

At the time of the formation of the euro, I would say most American economists said that's not a good idea; that's not a currency area that makes sense. And the answer from Europe was, 'How is Missouri and Mississippi a currency area?' But the flaw in that was not recognizing the importance of mobility.

Austan Goolsbee