Lars Peter Hansen Quotes

The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.

Macroeconomic policy can never be devoid of politics: it involves fundamental trade-offs and affects different groups differently.

In all modesty, we must admit that governments are not always the best doctors when it comes to diagnosing economic ailments and prescribing the right treatment.

I am not a politician but I have dedicated the biggest part of my professional life to economic policy both in Greece and Europe.

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.

My interest in economics has always been in the whole corpus of economic theory, the interrelationships between the various fields of theory and their relevance for the formulation of economic policy.

Things swept so badly that I had distrust - after 1967, let's say - of American Keynesianism. For better or worse, U.S. Keynesianism was so far ahead of where it started. I am a cafeteria Keynesian.

Keynes eliminated economic theory's ancient role as spoilsport for inflationist and statist schemes, leading a new generation of economists on to academic power and to political pelf and privilege.

The very name of my subject, economics, suggests economizing or maximizing. But Political Economy has gone a long way beyond home economics.

The economy is not immutable; it's not about natural laws. It's about rules, and we make the rules.

The human capital of most macroeconomists, heavily invested in demand management, was wiped out by the policy failures of the 1970s.

What the president announced yesterday, is that somehow magically, if we just continue to prime the pump of taxpayer dollars, we're going to see magically an economic recovery.

It's time to create an Economic Growth Code whose purpose is to fix and grow the economy, not redistribute massive amounts of wealth.

The economics profession advances by one confusing financial disaster at a time.

It was gradually learned that acceptance of a somewhat higher inflation rate would not really bring somewhat higher employment.

History speaks pretty clearly that the markets do better with Democrats. Republicans' ideas of what constitutes fiscal responsibility simply are not good for the stock market. Democrats have many tendencies, but one of them is to look after the workers, and actually that tends to be good for demand and good for markets.

The Federal Reserve has always recognized the importance of allowing markets to work, and government oversight of financial firms will never be fully effective without the aid of strong market discipline.

I had become interested in economics, an interest that was transformed into a lifetime dedication when I met with the mathematical theory of general economic equilibrium.

I have spoken about deficits, and I think deficits are important because they address broad economic and financial stability. We need to talk about that.

The Federal Reserve cannot solve all the economy's problems on its own.

Monetary policy itself cannot sensibly be directed at reducing imbalances.

Austerity policy without currency devaluation can only hamper economic growth.

Spending time at the Federal Reserve was a good learning opportunity for me. It helped me to understand economic philosophies and polices that I had not previously known about.

It appears that Wall Street is not acting as a force for economic expansion, providing access to capital for companies that make things. Rather, it seems, Wall Street is using government bailouts to lever up.

I believe, unlike people that are totally free-market, laissez-faire fundamentalists, that there is an important role that the government can play - one, in providing public goods, whether it's education, health care, or other things, and two, supervising countercyclical policy - stimulus, whether it's monetary, fiscal, or otherwise.