Robert J. Shiller Quotes

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Robert J. Shiller

Profession : Economist

Birth : March 29, 1946

Manufacturers of food try to get the optimal ratio to tap into your impulsivity. They don't care about your health.

Robert J. Shiller

Fifty years ago or a hundred years ago, generally, most people would buy a house the way you buy a car. When you buy a car, do you think, 'I better buy this year rather than next year because car prices might go up?'

Robert J. Shiller

What would be better, that people build big houses thinking that they'll make capital gains or that they send their children to medical school and they do research on curing diseases? When you put it that way, it seems obvious. There has developed a sense of personal worth that's tied to one's house.

Robert J. Shiller

Housing traditionally is not viewed as a great investment. It takes maintenance; it depreciates. It goes out of style. All of those are problems. And there's technical progress in housing. So, new ones are better. So, why was it considered an investment? That was a fad.

Robert J. Shiller

People might just decide, 'Yeah, I'll diversify my portfolio. I'll live in a rental.' That is a very sensible thing for many people to do.

Robert J. Shiller

We should not be focusing on quick solutions. The really important concern for policymakers everywhere is to prevent disasters - that is, the outlier events that matter the most.

Robert J. Shiller

When I see the Trump supporters on television explaining themselves, I don't get a feeling of supreme confidence. They've created a revolution, and now maybe they're a little scared by it.

Robert J. Shiller

As far as I can find, almost no one in the profession - not even luminaries like John Maynard Keynes, Friedrich Hayek, or Irving Fisher - made public statements anticipating the Great Depression.

Robert J. Shiller

We judge economics by what it can produce. As such, economics is rather more like engineering than physics: more practical than spiritual.

Robert J. Shiller

The problem is that once we focus on economic policy, much that is not science comes into play. Politics becomes involved, and political posturing is amply rewarded by public attention.

Robert J. Shiller

Yes, horoscopes still persist in popular newspapers, but they are there only for the severely scientifically challenged, or for entertainment; the idea that the stars determine our fate has lost all intellectual currency.

Robert J. Shiller

Critics of 'economic sciences' sometimes refer to the development of a 'pseudoscience' of economics, arguing that it uses the trappings of science, like dense mathematics, but only for show.

Robert J. Shiller

This is the paradox of thrift: belt-tightening causes people to lose their jobs, because other people are not buying what they produce, so their debt burden rises rather than falls.

Robert J. Shiller

One should have a wide variety of assets in one's portfolio. And oil, by the way, is a particularly important asset to have in one's portfolio because we need it, and the economy thrives on it.

Robert J. Shiller

Fear causes individuals to restrain their spending and firms to withhold investments; as a result, the economy weakens, confirming their fear and leading them to restrain spending further. The downturn deepens, and a vicious circle of despair takes hold.

Robert J. Shiller