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Economists often like startling theorems, results which seem to run counter to conventional wisdom.

Economists create their own worlds. We're like little gods with our artificial economics, wanting to see what happens.

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.

I don't think policy makers surprise unnecessarily. You don't pick surprise as a part of your policy. Markets value a certain amount of predictability. But there are certain areas where surprise is a tool.

Economists tend to think they are much, much smarter than historians, than everybody. And this is a bit too much because at the end of the day, we don't know very much in economics.

The good news is that economists are intelligent, engaging and often charming folks. The bad news is their work is often of little use to investors.

Economists have allowed themselves to walk into a trap where we say we can forecast, but no serious economist thinks we can.

The track record of economists in predicting events is monstrously bad. It is beyond simplification; it is like medieval medicine.

An economist's guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's.

Narrative drives most of economics. Everything seems to be part of a story, and how that story is told often leads to critical error.