Edmund Phelps

Well into the 20th century, scholars viewed economic advances as resulting from commercial innovations enabled by the discoveries of scientists - discoveries that come from outside the economy and out of the blue. ”

In the 1960s, and stretching back to the 1930s, it was felt by many economists that easy money is a reliable way to increase employment. ”

The fallacy of the neoclassicals is their tenet that total employment, though hit by shocks, can be said always to be heading back to some normal level. ”

When I was in college at Amherst, my father asked me a favor: to take one course in economics. I loved it - for the challenge of its mysteries. ”

Those of us born into vitalist and expressionist cultures must hope that governments will draw back from shutting down the modernist project of exploring, experimenting, and imagining - of voyaging into the unknown - that has been essential for rewarding lives. ”

Chancellor Angela Merkel and Wolfgang Schaeuble, her finance minister, are right to oppose fiscal and bank unions without political union. ”

To pump up consumer or government demand would force interest rates up and asset prices down, possibly by enough to destroy more jobs than are created. ”

If you rent, that's it. You don't have to pay any interest to anybody. You don't have to pay any maintenance costs to anybody. You don't have to worry about whether the boiler is going to break down. While if you own your own home, you have a hundred aggravations. ”

America's peak years of indigenous innovation ran from the 1820s to the 1960s. There were a few financial panics and two depressions, to be sure. But in this period, a frenzy of creative activity, economic competition and rapid growth in national income provided widening economic inclusion, rising wages for all, and engaging careers for most. ”

Overpaying the banks for their toxic assets could contribute capital, but that may not be politically feasible or attractive. ”