William Easterly Quotes

I'm not currently into economic textbooks, but my grandchildren tell me that the book by Gregory Mankiw, former head of the white house council of economic advisers is a model of intelligence and clarity. Why not try that one.

The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should. I've got Greenspan's book.

Obviously it's easier to grow faster when you are a less developed country than when you are where the U.S. is.

I was born in Jamaica but was educated by, and now serve, prestigious First World institutions, so I believe that I have a unique, dual perspective. To sidestep any biases I might have, I use the objective lens of the stock market to discover which policies actually delivered prosperity to emerging markets.

My colleague Bill Keegan has written a very short book ('Saving the World?') on an unlikely topic - he is the first economist to try to rehabilitate Gordon Brown.

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

I'm a Ph.D. in economics, and so you analyze every situation uniquely because every international situation is unique.

In the late 1960s, the New Classical economists saw the same weaknesses in the microfoundations of macroeconomics that have motivated me. They hated its lack of rigor. And they sacked it.

As an undergraduate at UBC in Canada, I fell in love with economic theory. It was the right choice for me.

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.

I was initially very interested in public policy, but then after my masters at Harvard, I felt that it was important to get a better handle on the economics of it as well. I did my Ph.D. in macroeconomics, and my thesis - 'Why Is It That Some Countries Save And Others Not?' - was on savings.

In Oxford before the war, I had, with this interest in mind, written a short textbook entitled, An Introduction to Economic Analysis and Policy. It was now my intention to rewrite this work.

Any econometrician who wants to see practical application of his science will be highly concerned with applications to economic planning at the national level.

I look under the skin of countries' economies, and I help them make better decisions and be stronger, to prosper and create employment.

Emerging markets are hugely important.

It became clear I wanted to be a development economist. I mean, I said I wanted to work on the economics of poor countries. And I'd actually say that I don't think that was so much about narrowing the gap as about increasing their incomes, which means economic growth, which is really my prime interest.

In the rich countries the poor expect a quantity and quality of commodities beyond the dreams of Louis XIV, while many of the so-called developing countries enjoy much higher economic growth rates than those of industrialized countries at a similar stage of their own histories.

My dad is an economist who does global development research. What he practices is a kind of quantifiable empathy: trying to empathize with systems rather than people.

We all have to think about the emerging markets.

I am a trained economist.

When I was a graduate student, I actually took a course in development economics and I thought it was the most boring thing in the world.

Large companies everywhere tend to be more productive than small ones. But the gap in productivity is far wider in developing countries.

A nation as such does not give aid to another nation. More precisely, the common citizens of our country, through their taxes, give to the privileged elites of another country. As someone once said: foreign aid is when the poor people of a rich country give money to the rich people of a poor country.

My definition of economic development is economic growth.

The great question for our time is, how to make sure that the continuing scientific revolution brings benefits to everybody rather than widening the gap between rich and poor. To lift up poor countries, and poor people in rich countries, from poverty, to give them a chance of a decent life, technology is not enough. Technology must be guided and driven by ethics if it is to do more than provide new toys for the rich.