Quote

Economic engineering is about the design and analysis of frameworks for achieving specific economic objectives.

Design can never be an ultimate explanation for anything. It can only be a proximate explanation. A plane or a car is explained by a designer but that's because the designer himself, the engineer, is explained by natural selection.

The genius idea of industrialism was the concept of the Model T: In exchange for something cheap and well-made, we'd forgo unique, lovely design.

Design is a tool that either allows us to create new markets or disrupt existing ones.

My sense of designing is a mix of intuition and intellectual control.

I think simplicity is a good guide: The more economical a theory, the better.

Beautiful Evidence is about the theory and practice of analytical design.

Much theoretical work, of course, focuses on existing economic institutions. The theorist wants to explain or forecast the economic or social outcomes that these institutions generate.

If budget planning requires gathering information from people who may not always have the incentive to disclose that information, then the principles of mechanism design can definitely be of use in such planning.

Leo Hurwicz is the father of mechanism design theory and has inspired much of my work, and Roger Myerson is an old friend and collaborator and a tremendous economist.