Angus Deaton

“I doubt that Donald Trump would be happier... if he was a different person. But Trump is always telling people how great his life is and about all the great things that he's done, and that's also all about his income. And that's also what we found. If you ask people how their lives are going, as a whole, it seems they tend to point to income.”

“Inequality is not the same thing as unfairness; and, to my mind, it is the latter that has incited so much political turmoil in the rich world today.”

“There's this narrative that is entrenched in some of the professions that there's this mysterious thing called 'socioeconomic status' that is immutably correlated with health. And it isn't.”

“It's hard to think that Mark Zuckerberg is actually impoverishing anyone by getting rich with Facebook. But driverless cars are another matter entirely.”

“Globalisation, for me, seems to be not first-order harm, and I find it very hard not to think about the billion people who have been dragged out of poverty as a result.”

“I'm very keen that we have this debate about the good parts of inequality and the bad parts of inequality. It's not a one-sided thing.”

“Like many in academia and in the development industry, I am among globalization's greatest beneficiaries - those who are able to sell our services in markets that are larger and richer than our parents could have dreamed of.”

“Political and legal institutions play a central role in setting the environment that can nurture prosperity and economic growth.”

“The World Bank adjusts its poverty estimates for differences in prices across countries, but it ignores differences in needs.”

“It is true that globalization has fueled greater income inequality. But much of this increase should be welcomed, not condemned. There is nothing inherently bad about inequality. Whether it is bad depends on how it comes about and what it does.”

“The history of Montana has been of the government giving land grants to people that could not possibly turn it into decent farms. And that's destroying their lives. So they don't see the government as something that's out there to help them.”

“Inequality is not so much a cause of economic, political, and social processes as a consequence. Some of these processes are good, some are bad, and some are very bad indeed.”

“The world is hugely unequal.”

“As recognized since ancient times, the coexistence of very rich and very poor leads to two possibilities, neither a happy one. The rich can rule alone, disenfranchising or even enslaving the poor, or the poor can rise up and confiscate the wealth of the rich.”

“Parents tend to value their lives more highly than people without kids, but they're different in lots of ways: They're richer. They're better educated. They're healthier.”

“Trade, migration, and modern communications have given us networks of friends and associates in other countries. We owe them much, but the social contract with our fellow citizens at home brings unique rights and responsibilities that must sometimes take precedence, especially when they are as destitute as the world's poorest people.”

“I didn't care for school much - it was very strict, corporal punishment in the form of the 'tawse' was common and unpredictable, and I was often afraid - but I believe that I did well enough; indeed, my mother always regretted that I had not stayed long enough to become the 'dux,' as the best pupil was called.”

“I have the great good fortune that one of my collaborators in work, Anne Case, is also my collaborator in life.”

“I do worry about a world in which the rich get to write the rules.”

“There is much that remains mysterious about why some countries grow rapidly and some grow slowly.”