Paul Samuelson Quotes

The basic idea that if you increase government spending or you cut people's taxes that stimulates the economy and lowers the unemployment rate, is a very widely accepted idea. It's in every economics textbook, that's what we teach our undergraduates, and I certainly try to teach them the truth.

Monetary policy cannot do much about long-run growth, all we can try to do is to try to smooth out periods where the economy is depressed because of lack of demand.

Aggressive government spending during the Great Recession was absolutely necessary.

Even if the government spends itself into bankruptcy and the economy still does not recover, Keynesians can always say that it would have worked if only the government had spent more.

Disciples of Keynes, who focus on aggregate demand, view any increase in household wealth as raising employment because they say it adds to consumer demand.

We are all Keynesians now.

Until Keynes, politicians had not needed economists for help in running the country any more than they had needed astronomers. But Keynes made them indispensible.

In an economy, when the government spends more and invests in the economy, that money circulates, and recirculates again and again. So not only does it create jobs once: the investment creates jobs multiple times.

Keynes did not teach us how to perform the miracle of turning a stone into bread, but the not at all miraculous procedure of eating the seed corn.

Microeconomics is about money you don't have, and macroeconomics is about money the government is out of.

Keynesians are to economics what witch doctors are to medicine.

I do not regard the Keynesian revolution as a great intellectual triumph. On the contrary, it was a tragedy because it came so late. Hitler had already found out how to cure unemployment before Keynes had finished explaining why it occured.

Larger deficits are necessary and proper means to mitigate unemployment as the far greater evil in terms of human welfare.

The BBC is locked to the reading of the economy that is run out of Ed Miliband and Ed Balls' office. They think if only you spend and borrow more money you can create growth everywhere.

I am not a monetarist, and I am not a Keynesian. On certain points I agree with each.

I'm happy to say I am a Harrison-Kreps-Keynesian.

The truth of the matter of is that stimulus money not only doesn't stimulate; it actually reduces output.

I didn't wake up one day and say, you know, 'Supply-side economics doesn't make sense.'

Keynesian economics has always been needed.

Stimulus does not work.

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.

I would reject the distinction between a Keynesian moment and a behavioral moment.

Discussions of the economy, especially during times of crisis, are often framed in terms of lessons we supposedly learned during the Depression of the 1930s. If we are not to endure terrible times like those again, we are told, we must support whatever form of state intervention is currently being peddled.

Monetary policy and fiscal policy are inseparable.

When the economy shows signs of faltering, prompt countermoves are required. Even mild measures on the part of government can be effective in the early stages of an economic decline. ... If action is withheld until a recession has gained momentum, strong and costly measures may prove insufficient.