At the simplest level, economics can better show us the consequences of our actions. Less simple are cases in which we don't have the knowledge to predict the full consequences. Global warming and climate change are examples.
Edmund PhelpsRead
A nation's economy is more than its markets, tastes, technologies and property rights.
Interpretation
What this quote means
A nation's economy encompasses more than just its markets and resources; it includes cultural and social elements that shape its functioning.
Edmund Phelps highlights that a nation's economy is not solely defined by its markets, consumer preferences, technological advancements, or legal structures regarding property. Instead, it encompasses a broader set of factors including social norms, cultural values, and the collective behavior of its citizens, which all contribute to how an economy operates and thrives.
Themes
EconomyCultureSocialMarketsTechnology
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion on economic policies, one might say, 'As Phelps reminds us, a nation's economy is shaped by more than just its markets.'
More from Edmund Phelps
All quotes βIf every effect of any new products or methods were required to be known before they could be produced and marketed, they would not be true innovations - and thus not represent new knowledge of what people would like, if offered.
Edmund PhelpsRead
The good life, as it is popularly conceived, typically involves acquiring mastery in one's work, thus gaining for oneself better terms - or means to rewards, whether material, like wealth, or nonmaterial - an experience we may call 'prospering.'
Edmund PhelpsRead
The epic story of the West is the development in the 19th century of a mass prosperity the world had never seen and its near-disappearance in one nation after another in the 20th.
Edmund PhelpsRead
Entrepreneurs have only the murkiest picture of the future in which they are making their bets, and also there is ambiguity: they don't know when they push this lever or that lever that the outcome is going to be what they think it is going to be - there is the law of unanticipated consequences.
Edmund PhelpsRead
When the word 'morality' comes up in connection with economics, income distribution and financial stability are usually the issues. Is it moral for rich countries to use such a high proportion of the world's resources or for investment bankers to earn large bonuses?
Edmund PhelpsRead
Similar quotes
I know of no example in time or place of a society that has been marked by a large measure of political freedom, and that has not also used something comparable to a free market to organize the bulk of economic activity.
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To restore confidence in our markets and our financial institutions so they can fuel continued growth and prosperity, we must address the underlying problem. The federal government must implement a program to remove these illiquid assets that are weighing down our financial institutions and threatening our economy.
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The most powerful forces in economics are not numbers or facts. They are prejudices and preferences. No amount of evidence will ever change the degree to which many of the rich and powerful prefer themselves to be richer and more powerful and others poorer and weaker.
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I'm quite worried about the fiscal imbalances that we've got and what that might mean in terms of financial crisis ahead.
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If you don't talk about families, then it's easy to disembody subprime mortgages and asset securitization and unemployment rates without remembering that every one of those numbers is a million families.
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We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics. Out of the collapse of a prosperity whose builders boasted their practicality has come the conviction that in the long run economic morality pays.
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