Eric Maskin Quotes
What we mean by an outcome will naturally depend on the context. Thus, for a government charged with delivering public goods, an outcome will consist of the quantities provided of such goods as intercity highways, national defense and security, environmental protection, and public education together with the arrangements by which they are financed.
Maskin, Eric S. "Mechanism Design: How to Implement Social Goals." American Economic Review, vol. 98, no. 3, 2008, pp. 567-576.
In any significant change of public policy including public investments, some will benefit more than others, and some interests will be harmed. Unless the politician is willing to face this reality there will be little or no progress. Bloomberg invested a great deal in improving air quality of the city, but there were some companies who had to pay more to reduce their pollution.
Spanish Colonial Policy and Practice was generally terrible and particularly so in the Philippines, See {629450}. So it was relatively easy for the President to document genuine improvements our imperialism had produced. However, the Filipinos would have preferred to make progress as an independent country.
Eric Stark Maskin is an American economist and 2007 Nobel laureate recognized with Leonid Hurwicz and Roger Myerson "for having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory". He is currently Adams University Professor and Professor of Economics and Mathematics at Harvard University.
