Eric Maskin

If budget planning requires gathering information from people who may not always have the incentive to disclose that information, then the principles of mechanism design can definitely be of use in such planning. ”

In an industry with highly sequential innovation, it may be better for society to scrap patents altogether than try to tighten them. ”

Prediction is certainly a valuable goal in science, but not the only one. Explanation is also important, and there are plenty of sciences that do a lot of explaining and not much predicting. ”

I don't want to make public statements about issues that I have not studied in detail. ”

There are some things that we value as a public good that the markets can't deliver, like clean air. ”

Perhaps one day earthquakes, hurricanes and financial crashes will all be predictable. But we don't have to wait until then for seismology, meteorology and economics to become sciences; they already are. ”

Economic forecasting has actually got pretty good over the years, though admittedly, we don't always get it right. ”

If I'm a bank, and I'm making risky loans, I have an incentive, if I can, to make those loans using other people's money: in other words, to make highly leveraged loans. ”

I have a strong attachment to Harvard. ”

How do we ensure in the case of public goods that they are provided at all, and that they are provided at the right level, taking into account citizens' preferences? ”