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One is led to conclude that economics as a scientific discipline is still somewhat hanging in the air.

— Tjalling Koopmans Three Essays (1957)

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More quotes by Tjalling Koopmans

Econometrics may be defined as the quantitative analysis of actual economic phenomena based on the concurrent development of theory and observation, related by appropriate methods of inference.

We look upon economic theory as a sequence of conceptual models that seek to express in simplified form different aspects of an always more complicated reality.

Three Essays (1957)

Optimizing responses of economic agents are simultaneously feasible only if the proper prices are already known to them. But these prices must somehow themselves be the result of the same responses.

If evolutionary selection is the basis for a belief in profit maximization, 'then we should postulate that basis itself and not the profit maximization which it implies in certain circumstances.

Three Essays (1957)

Decisions and plans made by others... [can be judged to be] quantitatively at least as important as the primary uncertainty arising from random acts of nature and unpredictable changes in consumers' preferences.

Three Essays (1957)

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We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living.

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Economics is on the side of humanity now.

Isaac Asimov Empire novels (1950)

Since the state must necessarily provide subsistence for the criminal poor while undergoing punishment, not to do the same for the poor who have not offended is to give a premium on crime.

John Stuart Mill Principles of Political Economy (1848)

Economy, in the estimation of common minds, often means the absence of all taste and comfort.

Sydney Smith Lady Holland's Memoir (1855)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Tjalling Koopmans (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.