34 quotes
My teachers helped guide and motivate me; but the responsibility of learning was left with me.
Autobiographical Essay (2001)
TRIPs imposed on the entire world the dominant intellectual property regime in the United States and Europe, as it is today. I believe that the way that intellectual property regime has evolved is not good for the United States and the EU; but even more, I believe it is not in the interest of the developing countries.
Making globalization work (2006)
One of the reasons that basic research is advanced most by not resorting to intellectual property is that while doing so would have questionable benefits, the costs are apparent. [...] Interestingly, even in software, this system of open collaboration has worked. Today we have the Linux computer operating system, which is also based on the principle of open architecture.
Making globalization work (2006)
If stability and efficiency required that there existed markets that extended infinitely far into the future — and these markets clearly did not exist — what assurance do we have of the stability and efficiency of the capitalist system?
Autobiographical Essay (2001)
It's actually a tribute to the quality of economics teaching that they have persuaded so many generations of students to believe in so much that seems so counter to what the world is like. Many of the things that I'm going to describe make so much more common sense than these notions that seem counter to what ones eyes see every day.
The Lange-Lerner-Taylor theorem, asserting the equivalence of market and market socialist economies, is based on a misguided view of the market, of the central problems of resource allocation, and (not surprisingly, given the first two failures) of how the market addresses those basic problems.
Whither Socialism? (1994)
The job of the Western trade negotiators is to get a better trade deal for their country's interests—for example, gaining more market access and stronger intellectual property rights—without giving up agriculture subsidies or nontariff trade barriers. Fairness is not in the lexicon of these trade negotiators.
Making globalization work (2006)
The problem is easy to state: developing countries borrow too much—or are lent too much—and in ways that force them to bear most or all of the risk of subsequent increases in interest rates, fluctuations in the exchange rate, or decreases in income. Given this, it is not surprising that they often cannot repay what is owed.
Making globalization work (2006)
The notion that every well educated person would have a mastery of at least the basic elements of the humanities, sciences, and social sciences is a far cry from the specialized education that most students today receive, particularly in the research universities.
Autobiographical Essay (2001)
Instead, unchecked by competition [by the USSR] to "win the heart and minds" of those in the Third World, the advanced industrial countries actually created a global trade regime that helped their special corporate and financial interests, and hurt the poorest countries of the world.
Making globalization work (2006)
The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late.
We need to distinguish between incentives at the organizational level and at the individual level, though some of the problems in designing incentive structures are common to both. We need to ask how, for the kinds of activities the public sector engages in, the organization is rewarded for "success" or punished for lack of it, and how individuals are similarly rewarded and punished.
Whither Socialism? (1994)
Seeing an economy that is, in many ways, quite different from the one grows up in, helps crystallize issues: in one's own environment, one takes too much for granted, without asking why things are the way they are.
Autobiographical Essay (2001)
They [free market policies] were never based on solid empirical and theoretical foundations, and even as many of these policies were being pushed, academic economists were explaining the limitations of markets — for instance, whenever information is imperfect, which is to say always.