34 quotes
Intellectual property does not really belong in a trade agreement.
Making globalization work (2006)
The fall of Wall Street is for market fundamentalism what the fall of the Berlin Wall was for communism.
The reason that the invisible hand often seems invisible is that it is often not there.
In the long run, the most important changes required to make globalization work are reforms to reduce the democratic deficit.
Making globalization work (2006)
Competition is limited by the scale of the market, and as the scale of the market has changed, so has the effectiveness of competition.
Whither Socialism? (1994)
As I argued earlier, I view competition as far more important than privatization.
Whither Socialism? (1994)
Most poor people earn more than minimum wage when they are working; their problem is not low wages. The problem comes when they are not working.
Economics (1993)
The theories that we describe here provide the basis of progress toward a unification of macroeconomics and microeconomics.
If there is to be support for trade globalization in the developed world, we must make sure that the benefits and costs are more evenly shared, which will entail more progressive income taxation.
Making globalization work (2006)
Much of my work in this period was concerned with exploring the logic of economic models, but also with attempting to reconcile the models with every day observation.
When I was at the World Bank, it would often be said in the face of obvious failure that our strategy was correct, it just wasn't implemented well.
Making globalization work (2006)
Limited liability should not be sacrosanct. Like property rights—including intellectual property—it is a creation of man, to provide appropriate incentives; when that artifice fails to fulfill its social function, it needs to be modified.
Making globalization work (2006)
The era of multilateral trade liberalization seems to be nearing an end (at least for a while), as well-founded disillusionment in the developing countries combines with growing protectionist sentiment in the developed world.
Making globalization work (2006)
Today, as we face a retreat from the rules-based, liberal global order, with autocratic rulers and demagogues leading countries that contain well over half the world’s population, Fukuyama’s idea seems quaint and naive.
New technologies (reinforced by new trade rules) are enhancing the market power of incumbent, dominant firms, such as Microsoft, which are all from the developed world; for the first time, in a key global industry, there is a near-global monopolist.
Making globalization work (2006)
Economists often like startling theorems, results which seem to run counter to conventional wisdom.
Autobiographical Essay (2001)
The natural resource curse is not fate; it is choice. The exploitation of natural resources is an important part of globalization today, and in some ways the failures of the resource-rich developing countries are emblematic of globalization's failures.
Making globalization work (2006)
In part, free trade has not worked because we have not tried it: trade agreements of the past have been neither free nor fair. They have been asymmetric, opening up markets in the developing countries to goods from the advanced industrial countries without full reciprocation.
Making globalization work (2006)
An early insight in my work on the economics of information concerned the problem of appropriability — the difficulty that those who pay for information have in getting returns.
Autobiographical Essay (2001)
In debate, one randomly was assigned to one side or the other. This had at least one virtue — it made one see that there was more than one side to these complex issues.
Autobiographical Essay (2001)