When I was growing up in South Korea in the '70s and early '80s, the country was too poor to buy original records. Everything was bootlegged.

I am one of the most successful economists, according to what markets tell us, though most of my professional colleagues, who are much keener to accept market outcomes than I am, would dismiss me as a crank or - the worst of all abuses among economists - a 'sociologist.'

Overcoming the myth that there is such a thing as an objectively defined 'free market' is the first step towards understanding capitalism.

When we assess the impact of technological changes, we tend to downplay things that happened a while ago.

They used to say it was bad for Indians to drink, but it's bad for anybody. When they drink they lose their cool, a lot of us. Like when we played with Sonny Boy, I would never get paid, you know. He would drink up all the money.

I don't know how this guy knew how much money I was making. I didn't know how much money I was making.

During my undergraduate training at UCLA, I was studying finance and securities; my particular interest was with mutual funds. Wanting to get into a high position at some of the companies that were doing that, I knew that law would be useful.

Productivity and the growth of productivity must be the first economic consideration at all times, not the last. That is the source of technological innovation, jobs, and wealth.