Paul Krugman Quotes

Paul Krugman won the Nobel Prize in Economics

When it comes to learning and generating ideas, It is always advisable to know different opinions and points of view. Especially in the world of finance it is advisable to know a little about the most famous economists, their opinions, theories and methods. Therefore, the phrases of Paul Krugman, who has won a Nobel Prize in Economics, can be very useful to us.

This great economist criticizes various social and political points that interfere with the economy as we know it today. I advise you to read the most outstanding phrases of Paul Krugman. In addition, we will also talk about the trade theory that he developed and that supposed a whole revolution.

The 80 best phrases of Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman graduated from economics

Paul Krugman's phrases stand out especially for its harsh criticism of the lack of cultural integrity and the advantages enjoyed only by the wealthy population, such as access to universities or lower taxes. Let's see his 80 most memorable phrases below:

  1. "It is not worth having a reform if it is obtained by making so many concessions that they end up condemning it to failure."
  2. Appeal to the intellectually insecure is also more important than it seems. Because the economy affects so much of life, everyone wants to have an opinion. "
  3. "For the vast majority of people, the process of fixing the economy would not have to be painful or involve sacrifices."
  4. "My favorite zombie is the belief that lowering taxes on the rich makes the economy grow and generates wealth that ends up spreading to the entire population."
  5. «What you really should be looking for, in a world that always faces us with unpleasant surprises, is intellectual integrity: the willingness to face the facts, even when they disagree with your ideas, and the ability to admit mistakes and change course . »
  6. "Ending this depression would be an experience that would make almost everyone feel good, with the sole exception of those who are politically, socially and professionally mired in stubborn economic doctrines."
  7. "Many say, for example, that admission criteria, even at elite universities, have been lowered considerably."
  8. “When monetary expansion is ineffective, fiscal expansion, such as loan-financed public works programs, must take its place. Such fiscal expansion can break the vicious cycle of low spending and low income. "
  9. But remember that this is by no means a general-purpose policy recommendation; it is essentially a strategy of desperation, a dangerous drug to be prescribed only when the usual over-the-counter remedy of monetary policy has failed. " - On social aid.
  10. «This long term is a wrong guide to understand the present. In the long run we will all be dead. "
  11. "Lowering taxes on the rich does not create wealth, it only serves to make the rich richer."
  12. Whose fault is it for the replacement of a serious discussion on world trade with what I have come to regard as pop internationalism
  13. Why has Europe responded so badly to its crisis? I have already noted part of the answer: many leaders of the continent seem determined to Hellenize the story and believe that those who are going through difficulties - not just Greece - have gotten there because of fiscal irresponsibility. "
  14. "It is thought that a third of the people who enter Harvard University would not have been admitted twenty years ago."
  15. "To some extent, of course, it is the result of basic human instincts: intellectual laziness, even among those who would be seen as wise and profound, will always be a powerful force."
  16. "If you are involved in politics in areas close to the Republican Party, you have to defend these ideas, even if you know they are false."
  17. "Economists pose too easy and useless a task if, in stormy times, all they can tell us is that when the storm passes the waters will have calmed down again."
  18. "If the problem was fiscal waste, fiscal rectitude should be the solution."
  19. And the role of editors, who often prefer what pop internationalists have to say, should not be ignored to the hauntingly difficult ideas of people who can read national accounts or understand that the trade balance is also the difference between the saving and investing. »
  20. "I am not a saint but I am willing to pay more taxes."
  21. "At the beginning of the financial crisis, the pranksters said that our relations with China had turned out to be fair and balanced, after all: they were selling us poisoned toys and contaminated fish, and we were selling them fraudulent securities."
  22. "In short, the success of macroeconomic activism, in theory and in practice, has made it possible for free market microeconomics to survive."
  23. "The rich spend a lot of money to make people believe that lowering their taxes is good for the entire population:"
  24. «The American Prospect They are the same pop internationalists; They deliberately use their magazines as platforms for what amounts to an anti-intellectual crusade. "
  25. "The economy is presented as a moral work, but with another twist: in reality, the sins for which we are sorry never took place."
  26. "If we discovered that aliens from space were planning to attack us and we had to mount a massive montage to defend ourselves against that threat so that inflation and the budget would take a backseat, this crisis would be over in 18 months."
  27. "Political conditions have an essential influence on the distribution of income."
  28. "I think that as long as fossil fuels are cheap, people will use them and put off a move to new technologies."
  29. “We have done very little to solve the problems that caused the Great Recession. We haven't learned our lesson. "
  30. "We are in a situation where the worst seem to be triumphing."
  31. Why doesn't policy-relevant work seem to conflict with my research? part? I think it is because I have been able to address policy problems using almost exactly the same method that I use in my most basic work. "
  32. "If you haven't succeeded the first time, try again and again."
  33. “Workers are much more reluctant to accept, say, that at the end of the month an amount 5% less than what they received is deposited into their account, than to accept an unaltered income whose purchasing power, however, is eroded by inflation. "
  34. "I admit it: I had fun watching right-wingers go wild as health care reform finally became law."
  35. "The absence of social coverage represents one of the main causes of inequality and the loss of social mobility."
  36. "The objective is not to penalize rich people, it is only to make them pay their share of the financing of public policies that the rest of the population needs."
  37. "If there is a collapse tomorrow, the tools to reactivate the economy will be weaker."
  38. “The United States continues to be a privileged place for the richest 5 percent… It is an open society. We treat our elites very well. "
  39. "While the forces of globalization affect all developed countries in the same way, the distribution of income differs from country to country."
  40. "Apparently an important part of the citizens believe in a higher truth of a political or religious nature and they think that it does not matter to lie if you serve that higher truth."
  41. "I think that putting in place universal health coverage, which is something that can be done, is a priority and would represent a big step forward."
  42. "If people are politically stupid, it's because people are very interested in keeping them that way."
  43. "There is no scientific evidence that raising the minimum wage, up to a certain limit, causes more unemployment."
  44. «There is an episode in Twilight Zone in which scientists fake an alien invasion to achieve world peace. Well, this time we don't need it, what we need it for is to get some fiscal stimulus. "
  45. "Productivity is not everything, but in the long run it is almost everything."
  46. «A temporary evolution of ignorance, a period in which our insistence on looking in certain directions makes us unable to see what is right under our noses, can be the price of progress, an inevitable part of what happens when we try to make sense of complexity, of the world. "
  47. "Reality never lived up to what the American dream had hoped for."
  48. «There is a lot of corruption; there are politicians who let themselves be bought, either by those who contribute to their campaign or through personal bribery.
  49. "When you are asked to take a pay cut, it is very difficult to know if your boss is taking advantage of you."
  50. “The fact is that every successful example of economic development in the last century, every case of a poor nation that reached a more or less decent standard of living, or at least better, was achieved through globalization, that is to say , through production for the world market, rather than attempting self-sufficiency. "
  51. "I have friends, political scientists, sociologists, who share an interest in at least certain kinds of science fiction."
  52. "We are not being honest with people if we give the idea that tax cuts pay and pay for themselves."
  53. "The ability of a country to improve its standard of living over time depends almost entirely on its ability to increase its output per worker."
  54. “To combat the recession it is necessary for the Fed to respond forcefully; family spending must be increased to compensate for languishing business investment. "
  55. "Climate scientists soon see that their research is not only ignored but persecuted."
  56. "The best you can say about economic policy in this depression is that, for the most part, we have avoided a complete repeat of the Great Depression."
  57. "In most cases, perhaps almost all, corruption is more blurred and more difficult to identify."
  58. "Even if the debt limit is raised enough to prevent immediate default, even if the government shutdown is somehow ended, it will only be a temporary postponement."
  59. "I believe in a relatively egalitarian society, supported by institutions that limit the extremes of wealth and poverty."
  60. "Above all, we must stop pretending that we are having honest and sincere discussions."
  61. "Will we have the willpower to carry out a serious reform of the financial system?" If not, the current crisis will not be something specific, but the pattern that future events will follow. "
  62. "Politicians are rewarded for holding certain positions, and this makes them defend them more strongly, and even convince themselves that they have not actually bought them."
  63. «I believe in democracy, civil liberties and the rule of law. That makes me liberal and I'm proud of it. "
  64. But the California precedent continues to unsettle me. Who would have thought that the largest state in the United States, a state whose economy is larger than most but a few countries, could so easily become a banana republic? "
  65. "From the outside, it is difficult to see the difference between what they 'really' believe and what they are paid to believe."
  66. "Once the economy is deeply depressed, households and especially businesses may not be willing to increase spending no matter how much cash they have, they can simply add any monetary expansion to their board of directors."
  67. "Politics determines who has the power, not who has the truth."
  68. "The idea that honesty in facing reality is a virtue seems to have disappeared from public life."
  69. "Stories of people coming out of poverty and getting rich are very, very rare."
  70. "The only way to make sense of what happened is to see the vote as an expression of, well, identity politics."
  71. "The origins of our suffering are relatively trivial in the order of the universe, and could be fixed relatively quickly and easily if there were enough people in positions of power who understood reality."
  72. "No one is perfectly honest, but the blatant sea of ​​lies we suffer now is something new."
  73. "Such a situation, in which monetary policy has become ineffective, has become known as a liquidity trap."
  74. "The uninsured today are young people or young families."
  75. «Technology is our friend. We have a low emission economy within our reach at a very low cost. "
  76. "How reassuring, then, to be told that everything is irrelevant, that all you really need to know is a few simple ideas!"
  77. "We are all vulnerable to beliefs that are convenient for us."
  78. "National political conditions thus prevail over globalization."
  79. "They are not people, but ideas that are vigorously defended by certain politicians and media commentators, usually conservative, and they have one characteristic in common: they are totally unfounded."
  80. "The idea that there is only one thing called capitalism is not correct."

Who is Paul Robin Krugman?

Now that we know the famous phrases of Paul Krugman, let's talk a little about his biography. It is about an American economist who was born in 1953 in Albany. He received a BA in Economics from Yale University and a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Regarding his working life, Krugman was working as a teacher in several universities, among which is Princeton University. However, this celebrated economist It stands out especially for having won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2008. This trajectory makes the phrases of Paul Krugman a good source of inspiration and learning.

What is Paul Krugman's theory?

Paul Krugman developed the "new theory of trade"

Not only are Paul Krugman's phrases famous, but also his theory of trade. Traditionally, Heckscher and Ohlin advocated trade between different industries, while Krugman proposed a theory that dealt with intra-industry trade. That is, according to this economist it is traded internationally between countries whose economic status is similar and with the same type of products.

Initially it was thought that trade depended mainly on the way in which the various productive factors were distributed in each country, that is: labor, land and capital. In this way it was understood that international trade consisted of exchanges between the countries of the south and the north. For this reason, everyone wins as the countries specialize in those products in whose production they are more efficient.

Milton Friedman was considered the most influential economist of the second half of the XNUMXth century
Related article:
Milton Friedman Quotes

However, Paul Krugman carried out several studies that showed that the existing international trade was carried out with products of the same type. What's more, exchanges took place only in northern countries. From this moment came the so-called "new theory of trade" developed by Paul Krugman. According to him, those who really benefit from international trade with the most industrialized economies. Therefore, this economist rejects the traditional idea that international trade increases the general welfare.

As we can see not only with the phrases of Paul Krugman, but also with his theory, he is a very critical person with society and with a dazzling intellect. I hope this article has been useful and inspiring for you.


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