Wisdom in fragments

There are many in Europe and America who believe that our current troubles arise from excess debt, at both the household and national level. Those focusing on debt at the national level have warned that debt financed spending will in the long run be counterproductive.

Nobel Prize-Winning Economist & Critic of Globalization

While the crisis made the problems of the euro-structure clear, they were present long before. Indeed, the euro helped create the crisis: for the markets seemed to have vastly overestimated the extent to which the single market/single currency had reduced risk (another example of market irrationality), leading to excessive lending to the afflicted countries.

Nobel Prize-Winning Economist & Critic of Globalization

The representative agent model (and its descendants) imposed a straightjacket that made it difficult to think clearly about what was going on [in the economy]… To me [Stiglitz], the strangest aspect of modern macroeconomics was that the central banks were using a model in which banks and financial markets played no role.

Nobel Prize-Winning Economist & Critic of Globalization

A lot of businesses these days are markets. Companies like Google make markets for advertisements, Amazon is a market in and of its own right. Uber, AirBnB and many more are becoming big businesses by creating markets.

Nobel Prize-winning economist specializing in market design theory

If I may return to the biology analogy too; human beings get a lot of benefit from walking erect, but our backs and our feet are sometimes sore because we are made of parts that were put together before we could walk erect.

Nobel Prize-winning economist specializing in market design theory

I use the word repugnance to describe transactions that some people would like to engage in, that other people would not like them to; it's often hard to pin-down what harm the transaction does to anyone else.

Nobel Prize-winning economist specializing in market design theory

You only get to really redesign markets root and branch when they are failing so dramatically that everyone acknowledges it. Markets are a little like language. It's hard to change the spelling of certain words in the English language, even though those spellings are dysfunctional. Markets that are getting-along but not doing as well as they could are very hard to change.

Nobel Prize-winning economist specializing in market design theory

Markets are human artefacts; however we often treat them as natural phenomenon in the same way we might treat a language. People are the ones who ultimately make language, but we feel have no control over it as it's such an emergent phenomenon. Markets are emergent phenomenon too, but individual market-places have proprietors and groups of users and therefore markets are more amenable to change. When something isn't working, we can change the rules!

Nobel Prize-winning economist specializing in market design theory

Generally power is diffusing. New corporations such as Google and Facebook are also examples of power diffusing from nation states and moving to new forms of entities. Technology will only accelerate this trend.

Former NATO Supreme Commander & Military Strategist

We have relatively small groups like Al Qaeda, The Taliban and the Islamic State who are capable of challenging the mightiest and most advanced militaries of the world.

Venezuelan editor, author, and international affairs analyst and commentator

Size continues to be important, but is no longer the main factor shielding the powerful from the challenges of newcomers and new arrivals.

Venezuelan editor, author, and international affairs analyst and commentator

The most important form of power is human capital, people.. and their education. In today's world it is easier for people to amass education and communicate their ideas than it has ever been before.

Former NATO Supreme Commander & Military Strategist

Power is decaying because it has become easier to acquire, much harder to use, and thus easier to lose.

Venezuelan editor, author, and international affairs analyst and commentator

If you look at the countries in the world that are leading in their levels of reported happiness, it's countries such as the Nordics- Denmark virtually always comes out on top. The countries where people are happiest are ones which are much more domestically oriented and not seeking world-power.

Economist known for the Easterlin Paradox on income and happiness

Research has shown that when you compare the effect of a 1% change in unemployment rate and 1% change in the inflation rate; a 1% increase in unemployment has a bigger impact on people's happiness than a 1% increase in inflation.

Economist known for the Easterlin Paradox on income and happiness

Happiness is a measure that reflects the success with which people achieve their personal objectives of living levels, happy and healthy families and satisfying work.

Economist known for the Easterlin Paradox on income and happiness