Emily Oster Quotes

As an economist, I'm aware that life is full of trade offs.

The reality is that we are all economists. We all deal with scarcity as we make choices and calculate how to ration various items and resources that we consume, produce and utilize.

Everything we do in public policy prevents us from doing something else. To govern is to choose.

Because economics is all about optimising, doing the best you can with what you have - it's usually the first place you should look for answers if you want to maximise your happiness.

As much as it's sometimes hard to make choices about where you invest, it's equally hard to make choices about where you don't invest and what you eliminate.

Economics is a choice between alternatives all the time. Those are the trade-offs.

There are a lot of decisions we pass up on because we think, "You know what? That's just going to build - you know, maybe that's going to build me and not build the ministry and what I'm trying to do." So we pass up on a lot of opportunities.

Intelligent people make decisions based on opportunity costs.

Business wise, I have always learned valuable lessons so I don't regret any decisions I have made.

We must explain the truth: There is no free lunch.

As the future is never known with certainty, the evaluation of the prospective benefits requires the formation of expectations. An acceptable house, partner or job, then, is one that offers an expected stream of future benefit that has a value in excess of the option to continue to search for an even better alternative.

It is not possible to spend on one thing and then not have consequences on something else.

The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.

Funnily enough, the Federal Reserve produced comics about monetary policy, and there is a good comic book guide to microeconomics and macroeconomics out there. But it is not really appropriate for younger readers; it is really aimed at economics students.

Good household decision-making often relies on thinking about your household like a firm.

The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.

The law of diminishing returns is something I really believe in.

The media simply does not understand Econ 101.

There's no such thing as a free lunch.

People don't trade money for things when they value their money more highly than they value the things.

... balancing competing goals of simplicity, efficiency and equity.

[Cost-benefit analysis is used:] ... to produce lofty academic-sounding reasons for endless inaction.

I made a cold calculation that I wasn’t going to waste time on a futile struggle.

Economics is not about goods and services; it is about human choice and action.

There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.