Quotes from Christina Romer

In the four decades after World War II, manufacturing jobs paid more than other jobs for given skills. But that is much less true today. Increased international competition has forced American manufacturers to reduce costs. As a result, the pay premium for low-skilled workers in manufacturing is smaller than it once was.

Cold-turkey deficit reduction would cause a significant recession. A recent analysis by the Congressional Budget Office estimated that going headlong over the cliff would cause our gross domestic product, which has been growing at an annual rate of around 2 percent, to fall at a rate of 2.9 percent in the first half of 2013.

Making labor less expensive helps firms hire people.

The very first email I got [was] from a women's group saying 'We don't want this stimulus package to just create jobs for burly men.'

The most effective way to shake an economy out of a terrible downturn when we're at the zero lower bound is an aggressive change in policy that makes people wake up, say 'this is a new day' and change their expectations.

Recovery measures work better when they raise confidence - as Franklin D. Roosevelt understood. His fireside chats, and his inaugural address proclaiming he would fight the Great Depression with the same resolve he would muster against a foreign foe, were aimed at reassuring Americans.

I think something that forces financial institutions to write down underwater mortgages, I think, would be a sensible thing to do.

The stimulus legislation, technically known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, was a mixture of tax cuts for families and businesses; increased transfer payments, like unemployment insurance; and increased direct government spending, like infrastructure investment.

If you think about it, candidate Obama, Sen. Obama, was running on sort of long-run economic issues, like restoring prosperity to the middle class, dealing with the perennial problem of health care in the United States. He talked a lot about the budget deficit, about the need to transition to clean energy.

You know, I think the, the crucial thing, you know, we have put in place what is, is just simply the biggest, boldest recovery package in history, right; the stimulus package, biggest ever; the financial rescue, absolutely comprehensive; a housing plan - that is incredible medicine for the economy. And we fully expect it to work.

As a former member of President Obama's economic team, I have a soft spot for the fiscal stimulus legislation he signed just a month after his inauguration.

Where we're coming down is we currently have $787 billion of stimulus that's been passed. We're certainly focusing on spending that money as quickly and as efficiently and as transparently as we can. We think that's absolutely the right strategy.

If you look at the studies coming out of the Congressional Budget Office, the number one thing that's going to blow a hole in the deficit as we go forward 20, 30 years is government spending on healthcare.

A natural way that an economist approaches a problem is to say, here's where I think the economy is going; this is what we need to deal with the problem.

The goal of long-run economic growth without asset price bubbles is not only achievable, but is something we should expect if we put a sound regulatory framework in place and if policymakers remain vigilant.