Angus Deaton

“If you think about those bailouts that happened in 2008, that was a situation in which the government gave, at our expense, enormous sums of money to some of the richest people who have ever existed on Earth.”

“After a day's fishing, I'll know the solution to something or have good ideas that were not accessible before.”

“I believe, as do most people, that we have an obligation to assist the truly destitute.”

“Without properly functioning civil courts, there is no guarantee that innovative entrepreneurs can claim the rewards of their ideas.”

“I think inequality has gone past the point where it's helping us all get rich, and it's really becoming a serious threat.”

“People on left have to better understand what are the benefits of inequality, and people on right have to understand better what the dangers are... It has to become properly hardwired into the American democratic debate in a way that it hasn't really been.”

“A lot of our sources for income-inequality measures come from household surveys in which people report how much they earned in the last year, how much income they have, and so on. Those are not as well funded as they should be. We need to have those numbers.”

“In the high-income English-speaking world, the elderly get treated very well indeed.”

“I don't think equality is intrinsically valuable, meaning in and of itself. I'm not against inequality... if Bill Gates gets another hundred million dollars, it's no skin off my nose.”

“Despite broad public support, raising the minimum wage is always difficult owing to the disproportionate influence that wealthy firms and donors have in Congress.”

“I grew up pretty poor - not poor compared with people in India or Africa who are really poor, but poor enough so that the worry about money really cast a pall over your life a lot of the time.”

“The very wealthy have little need for state-provided education or health care... They have even less reason to support health insurance for everyone or to worry about the low quality of public schools that plagues much of the country.”

“If poverty and underdevelopment are primarily consequences of poor institutions, then by weakening those institutions or stunting their development, large aid flows do exactly the opposite of what they are intended to do.”

“Those of us who were lucky enough to be born in the right countries have a moral obligation to reduce poverty and ill health in the world.”

“Inequality is partly a marker of success.”

“The best moments are when, together with... you bring information, you bring data to bear in a way that helps illuminate something that you just don't really understand. Even if it doesn't completely clarify it, it just, you know, helps bring it together.”

“Economic growth is very important, but it is not the only thing, and it must be accompanied by sharing with those who are left behind, through effective social services and provision.”

“A lot of people in America and Europe feel that their governments are not representing them very much.”

“Although globalization and technological change have disrupted traditional work arrangements, both processes have the potential to benefit everyone. The fact that they have not suggests that the wealthy have captured the benefits for themselves.”

“The Nobel thing is like dying and going to heaven for a while. It's like being transported to a fairyland.”