Quotes from Robert J. Shiller

In the future, we will surely have even bigger such bubbles, each built up around its new and different new era story, and we will have to invent new names for them.

The word bubble creates a mental picture of an expanding soap bubble, which is destined to pop suddenly and irrevocably. But speculative bubbles are not so easily ended; indeed, they may deflate somewhat, as the story changes, and then reflate.

I also hope to challenge financial thinkers to improve their theories by testing them against the impressive evidence that suggests that the price level is more than merely the sum of the available economic information, as is now generally thought to be the case.

People who thought there was a bubble, and that prices were too high, find themselves questioning their own earlier judgments, and start to wonder whether fundamentals are indeed driving the price increase.

In the end, for all of us who strive to achieve, whether in business or in other walks of life, the end of life is a disappointment. The personal pleasure over a lifetime was mostly in the striving and in one's friendships and interactions. The pinnacle of achievement does not bring happiness, but at best the reflection that the striving achieved some benefit for others, unappreciative and unrelated though those others may

narratives are major vectors of rapid change in culture, in zeitgeist, and in economic behavior.

Is the market high only because of some irrational exuberance — wishful thinking on the part of investors that blinds us to the truth of our situation?

Certainly some researchers are thinking more realistically about the market's prospects and reaching better-informed positions on its future, but these are not the names that grab the headlines and thus influence public attitudes.

Trying to understand major economic events by looking only at data on changes in economic aggregates, such as gross domestic product, wage rates, interest rates, and tax rates, runs the risk of missing the underlying motivations for change. Doing so is like trying to understand a religious awakening by looking at the cost of printing religious tracts.

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.23

traditional economic approaches fail to examine the role of public beliefs in major economic events—that is, narrative. By incorporating an understanding of popular narratives into their explanations of economic events, economists will become more sensitive to such influences when they forecast the future. In doing so, they will give policymakers better tools for anticipating and dealing with these developments.

No somos conscientes de nuestra divinidad; de que somos parte del gran principio de causalidad del universo. No sabemos cuál es nuestra fuerza y sin saberlo no podemos usarla.

As a result, the American Dream became extremely useful in pitches for consumer products that encourage potential purchasers to feel better about their purchases, such as a new home or a second car. In fact, ProQuest News & Newspapers shows that more than half the use of the phrase American Dream has occurred in advertisements rather than articles.

A man is always a teller of tales, he lives surrounded by his stories and the stories of others, he sees everything that happens to him through them; and he tries to live his life as if he were recounting it.

Social psychologist Leon Festinger described a "social comparison process"10 as a human universal. People everywhere compare themselves with others of similar social rank, paying much less attention to those who are either far above them or far below them on the social ladder.

It may seem odd that the term unemployment rate did not receive more coverage in the 1930s, but the lack of coverage may reflect the public's lack of familiarity with its quantitative representation. They did not yet clearly differentiate between involuntary unemployment and laziness and pauperism. In contrast, today's narratives focus on blameless unemployment, the unemployment of those sincerely trying to find a job.

The basic technological unemployment narrative is the same, but the examples have a wider scope. First, giant locomotives and electrical power equipment economized on human muscle power. After the mutation, the narrative focused on computers replacing human thinking. This mutation refreshed the narrative.

Since the global financial crisis and recession of 2007-2009, criticism of the economics profession has intensified. The failure of all but a few professional economists to forecast the episode - the aftereffects of which still linger - has led many to question whether the economics profession contributes anything significant to society.

In a bubble, eventually people start saying, 'Wait a minute... these prices are way too high! What is anyone buying anymore? What could they possibly be thinking?' And then there's a correction and a bursting.

Fifty years ago or a hundred years ago, generally, most people would buy a house the way you buy a car. When you buy a car, do you think, 'I better buy this year rather than next year because car prices might go up?'

We don't know the probabilities of future events. Still, you have to take action, and so you do it on gut feeling. That's the world we live in.

The ability to focus attention on important things is a defining characteristic of intelligence.

The American dream, that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement … It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of a social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.

two elements: (1) the word-of-mouth contagion of ideas in the form of stories and (2) the efforts that people make to generate new contagious stories or to make stories more contagious.