Robert J. Shiller

“Trump has never been clear and consistent about what he will do as president.”

“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.”

“Some of the best theorizing comes after collecting data because then you become aware of another reality.”

“Any time you have change, it costs somebody. Somebody is a loser.”

“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?'”

“One thing I've noticed about history - you can search on newspapers going back hundreds of years, search for 'economic forecast,' you don't find it. It would be very rare to find it.”

“If we wait until income inequality is much more severe, we will have a whole class of new superrich who will probably feel entitled to their wealth and will have the means to defend their interest. That's already gone far enough. We shouldn't let it become more extreme.”

“The desperately poor may accept handouts, because they feel they have to. For those who consider themselves at least middle class, however, anything that smacks of a handout is not desired. Instead, they want their economic power back.”

“Hesitation is often like procrastination. One may have vague doubts and feel a need to mull things over; meanwhile, other issues intrude on thought, and no decision is taken. Ask people why they procrastinate, and you probably won't get a crisp answer.”

“People who stay unemployed for a long time start to look like damaged goods, and they don't get such good offers. Also, they're not learning anything. Most learning is on-the-job learning.”

“My very first publication was an estimator - this was a statistical procedure - a kind of invention. My father got a patent and started a business; it wasn't successful, but maybe I have some of him in me.”

“Money management has been a profession involving a lot of fakery - people saying they can beat the market, and they really can't.”

“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.”

“In a bubble, eventually people start saying, 'Wait a minute... these prices are way too high! What is anyone buying anymore? What could they possibly be thinking?' And then there's a correction and a bursting.”

“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.”

“That's the world we live in: when it comes to economics, people have emotions; it's not like chemistry or physics.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Trump does magic. Maybe it will be black magic sometime, but he's an amazing phenomenon.”

“Somehow, talking to young students brings you back to reality - it should, anyway.”