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Economic science concerns itself primarily with theoretical and empirical generalizations about the behavior of individuals, institutions, markets, and national economies. Most academic research falls in this category.

I think that it's more important for an economist to be wise and sophisticated in scientific method than it is for a physicist because with controlled laboratory experiments possible, they practically guide you; you couldn't go astray. Whereas in economics, by dogma and misunderstanding, you can go very sadly astray.

Economics is a strange science. Our subject deals with some of the most important as well as mundane issues that impinge on the human condition.

Rob Engle and I are concerned with extracting useful implications from economic data, and so the properties of the data are of particular importance.

It's kind of a funny way to put it, but if you want to study a dynamic economic system, what you'd like to be able to do is focus on the linkages, say, between asset markets and the macro economy without having to model everything at the same time.

A healthy economics has got to have both conceptual, theoretical research and applied, empirical research.

Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.

I think economics - and this is what I've tried to impart - has a tremendous amount of human interest in it.

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.