Economic Modeling Quotes

I can observe the game theory is applied very much in economics. Generally, it would be wise to get into the mathematics as much as seems reasonable because the economists who use more mathematics are somehow more respected than those who use less. That's the trend.

The problem with interest rates are that you are not modeling a single number, you are modeling a whole term structure, so it is a sort of different type of problem.

Mathematical economics is old enough to be respectable, but not all economists respect it. It has powerful supporters and impressive testimonials, yet many capable economists deny that mathematics, except as a shorthand or expository device, can be applied to economic reasoning. There have even been rumors that mathematics is used in economics (and in other social sciences) either for the deliberate purpose of mystification or to confer dignity upon common places as French was once used in diplomatic communications.

After my undergraduate, I've written a thesis that was in the government department, but largely, it turned out almost an economic type of thesis. And I was very interested in that, and I wanted to go get a Ph.D. in Economics.

An economist's guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's.

The good news is that economists are intelligent, engaging and often charming folks. The bad news is their work is often of little use to investors.

If you hear a "prominent" economist using the word 'equilibrium,' or 'normal distribution,' do not argue with him; just ignore him, or try to put a rat down his shirt.

Economists must always be prepared for surprises: they find many in trying to find order in the universe of their study.

Economists are about as useful as astrologers in predicting the future (and, like astrologers, they never let failure on one occasion diminish certitude on the next).

Economists create their own worlds. We're like little gods with our artificial economics, wanting to see what happens.

The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.

Economics is not a discipline that comes to correct answers - economies are too complex.

An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today.

The modern history of economic theory is a tale of evasions of reality.

I think that it's more important for an economist to be wise and sophisticated in scientific method than it is for a physicist because with controlled laboratory experiments possible, they practically guide you; you couldn't go astray. Whereas in economics, by dogma and misunderstanding, you can go very sadly astray.

I have never considered myself an economist.

I'm a better economist than I was a sax player.

Economics has never been a science - and it is even less now than a few years ago.

So, economics should emulate physics' basic ethos, but its search for precision in physics-like formulas is almost always wrong in economics.

As a scholarly discipline, economics has always suffered from physics envy.

An economist is a man who states the obvious in terms of the incomprehensible.

Mathematics brought rigor to Economics. Unfortunately, it also brought mortis.

Before economics can progress, it must abandon its suicidal formalism.

In the 1940s, economics started getting highly mathematical. It was basically because economists weren't smart enough to write down models of real behavior that they started writing down models of highly rational behavior - and they kind of forgot about humans.

Economics is a highly sophisticated field of thought that is superb at explaining to policymakers precisely why the choices they made in the past were wrong. About the future, not so much.