Quotes About Economics

The economic approach is both broader and simpler than that. It relies on data, rather than hunch or ideology, to understand how the world works, to learn how incentives succeed (or fail), how resources get allocated, and what sort of obstacles prevent people from getting those resources, whether they are concrete (like food and transportation) or more aspirational (like education and love).

Is distinctive black culture the cause of economic disparity between whites and blacks or merely the reflection of it?

Steven D. Levitt

Steven D. Levitt

Most of us have a lot more experience being consumers than producers, so we tend to view things through the lens of demand rather than supply.

Peter Leeson, whose research has covered topics like Gypsy law and pirate economics, did just that.

Steven D. Levitt

morality represents the way we would like the world to work and economics represents how it actually does work

Se podría sugerir que la moral representa el modo en que a las personas les gustaría que funcionase el mundo, mientras que la economía representa cómo funciona éste en realidad.

These budding drug lords bumped up against an immutable law of labor: when there are a lot of people willing and able to do a job, that job generally doesn't pay well. This is one of four meaningful factors that determine a wage. The others are the specialized skills a job requires, the unpleasantness of a job, and the demand for services that the job fulfills.

Morality, it could be argued, represents the way that people would like the world to work—whereas economics represents how it actually does work.

No entanto, quando se prende um fornecedor, cria-se uma situação de escassez que, inevitavelmente, impulsiona os preços para cima, o que atrai ainda mais fornecedores para o mercado. A guerra contra drogas movida pelos Estados Unidos tem sido relativamente ineficaz exatamente por concentrar-se nos vendedores, não nos compradores.

To Chen's surprise, Felix and the others responded rationally. When the price of a given food rose, the monkeys bought less of it, and when the price fell, they bought more. The most basic law of economics—that the demand curve slopes downward—held for monkeys as well as humans.

For every clever person who goes to the trouble of creating an incentive scheme, there is an army of people, clever and otherwise, who will inevitably spend even more time trying to beat it. Cheating may or may not be human nature, but it is certainly a prominent feature in just about every human endeavor. Cheating is a primordial economic act: getting more for less.

Steven D. Levitt

Steven D. Levitt

una hamburguesa con queso, como ha calculado el economista Kevin Murphy, cuesta 2,5 dólares más que una ensalada en repercusiones en la salud a largo plazo.

Morning robberies yield far more than afternoon robberies . . .' - When to Rob a Bank: A Rouge Economist's Guide to the World by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

If morality represents the way we would like the world to work and economics represents how it actually does work

Las conductas social y económica, añade, «son complejas, y comprender su carácter resulta mentalmente agotador.

Steven D. Levitt

If there is one mantra a Freak lives by, it is this: people respond to incentives.

cuando existe una gran cantidad de gente dispuesta a realizar un trabajo y capaz de hacerlo, por lo general éste no está bien remunerado. Ése es uno de los cuatro factores significativos que determinan un salario. Los otros tres son los conocimientos especializados que requiere un trabajo, lo desagradable que sea y la demanda de servicios que satisface.

asimetría de la información, un estado en el que en una transacción una de las partes posee mejor información que otra.