Michael Boskin Quotes

I understand how the economy actually works.

Economics pretends to be a science. Its practitioners fill blackboards with equations and clog computers with data. But it is really a faith, or more accurately a set of overlapping and squabbling faiths, each with its own doctrines.

We propose in the following Treatise to give an outline of the Science which treats of the Nature, the Production, and the Distribution of Wealth. To that Science we give the name of Political Economy.

Economics has never been a science - and it is even less now than a few years ago.

But while I loved all of these courses, there was an irresistible attraction of economics.

I am an economist, not an astrologer.

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.

The media simply does not understand Econ 101.

I wonder if economics has less basic core material than is necessary for fields such as mathematics, physics, or chemistry, say.

Economics has paid a terrible price for its dalliances with the Keynesian and neoclassical theories.

What a surprise. Economists disagree.

If you think about the amount of critical thinking that has come into the field of economics, two universities have dominated the landscape in my life: Chicago and Harvard.

Weirdly enough, I'm a macroeconomics enthusiast.

No one is entertained by economics.

I had never taken any economics. I literally didn't know what it was. I thought it was just about the study of money.

I studied economics with some teachers from ESADE. It's a really good school here in Spain. They helped me to understand a little about numbers, stats, economics, etc.

My interest in economics just basically comes because I think I'm a curious person, and I'm interested in how the world works.

I never, never in my life took a course in economics.

Economics is a very difficult subject. I've compared it to trying to learn how to repair a car when the engine is running.

I'm not an economist and we all know economists were created to make weather forecasters look good.

I went into the sciences very early on, but to me, economics pervades so much more of our lives and our existence.

Basic Economics 101. It's the most complicated simple subject there is.

Economics is not brain surgery.

The difference between microeconomics and macroeconomics is a bit like the difference between biology and medicine. Knowing that certain genes increase the risk of cancer is relatively easy. Figuring out exactly which people will get sick, or how to cure them, is a lot more complicated.

My main interest, however, was in economics, not law.