Alvin E. Roth Quotes

My first undertaking in the way of scientific experiment was in the field of economics and psychology.

The economist rarely examines the presuppositions of the models with which he works. The economist simply commences with individuals as evaluating, choosing, and acting units. This starting point for analysis necessarily draws attention to the choice or decision environment for the individuals who must make selections from among the alternatives.

How could economics not be behavioral? If it isn't behavioral, what the hell is it?

I entered economics because of a course I took on 'information economics,' which I found fascinating.

All of the studies we do in my group are quantified.

Economists discount any factors that would not influence the thinking of a rational person.

I think that it's more important for an economist to be wise and sophisticated in scientific method than it is for a physicist because with controlled laboratory experiments possible, they practically guide you; you couldn't go astray. Whereas in economics, by dogma and misunderstanding, you can go very sadly astray.

How should the best parts of psychology and economics interrelate in an enlightened economist's mind?... I think that these behavioral economics...or economists are probably the ones that are bending them in the correct direction. I don't think it's going to be that hard to bend economics a little to accommodate what's right in psychology.

A healthy economics has got to have both conceptual, theoretical research and applied, empirical research.

We should teach the students, as well as executives, how to conduct experiments, how to examine data, and how to use these tools to make better decisions.

Economists think about what people ought to do. Psychologists watch what they actually do.

I started off thinking that maybe the social sciences ought to have the kinds of mathematics that the natural sciences had. That works a little bit in economics because they talk about costs, prices and quantities of goods.

I work on the boundary between economics and statistics in this field called econometrics. Part of my interest is understanding how you use statistics in productive ways to analyze dynamic economic models.

If all the economists were laid end to end, they'd never reach a conclusion.

Economists often like startling theorems, results which seem to run counter to conventional wisdom.

Much theoretical work, of course, focuses on existing economic institutions. The theorist wants to explain or forecast the economic or social outcomes that these institutions generate.

When the scientific method came into being, it gave us a new window on the truth; namely, a method by laboratory-controlled experiments to winnow true hypotheses from false ones.

There is much evidence that people are not rational, in the economist’s sense; nor do they take into account expectation, in the precise interpretation of that word. As a result, economic theory often does not correspond with what happens in the market. Some would argue that we need descriptive economics. I would argue that all should be taught about probability, utility, and MEU (maximization of expected utility) and act accordingly.

I practice what has come to be called behavioral economics.

Tastes and behavior are important in economics. Nobody denies that. But the question is: How much of behavior is irrational, and how much of the irrational behavior really affects prices? It turns out that's very difficult to answer.

'Freakonomics' began with a 'N.Y. Times Magazine' profile I wrote about Steve Levitt. I was working on a book about 'the psychology of money,' and since Levitt's an economist, my editor thought I'd be the guy to write about him. Fact is that Levitt has almost no interest in either psychology or money.

In the 1940s, economics started getting highly mathematical. It was basically because economists weren't smart enough to write down models of real behavior that they started writing down models of highly rational behavior - and they kind of forgot about humans.

I love Richard Thaler's 'Quasi Rational Economics.' A collection of some of his most interesting and inventive essays, the real foundation of behavioral economics.

The left-brainer and the economist in me says watch what people do, not what they say.

What is it that the scientist finds useful in being able to relate a positive description of behavior to the solution of a maximizing problem? That is what a good deal of my own early work was about.