Economists From Israel

"People predict by making up stories. People predict very little and explain everything. People live under uncertainty whether they like it or not. People believe they can tell the future if they work hard enough. People accept any explanation as long as it fits the facts. The handwriting was on the wall. It was just the ink that was invisible. People often work hard to obtain information they already have and avoid new knowledge. Man is a deterministic device thrown into a probabilistic Universe. In this match, surprises are expected. Everything that has already happened must have been inevitable. A part of good science is to see what everyone else can see but think what no one else has ever said. The difference between being very smart and very foolish is often very small. So many problems occur when people fail to be obedient when they are supposed to be obedient, and fail to be creative when they are supposed to be creative The secret to doing good research is always to be a little underemployed. You waste years by not being able to waste hours. It is sometimes easier to make the world a better place than to prove you have made the world a better place."

"It is sometimes easier to make the world a better place than to prove you have made the world a better place."

"Let us take what the terrain gives."

"“It's frightening to think that you might not know something, but more frightening to think that, by and large, the world is run by people who have faith that they know exactly what is going on."

"He who sees the past as surprise-free is bound to have a future full of surprises."

"Creeping determinism."

"Happy species endowed with infinite appreciation of pleasures and low sensitivity to pain would probably not survive the evolutionary battle."

"People who make a difference do not die alone. Something dies in everyone who was affected by them. Amos made a great deal of difference, and when he died, life was dimmed and diminished for many of us. There is less intelligence in the world. There is less wit. There are many questions that will never be answered with the same inimitable combination of depth and clarity. There are standards that will not be defended with the same mix of principle and good sense. Life has become poorer. There is a large Amos-shaped gap in the mosaic, and it will not be filled. It cannot be filled because Amos shaped his own place in the world, he shaped his life, and even his dying. And in shaping his life and his world, he changed the world and the life of many around him."

"“Torah study is an intellectual pursuit, and honoring this ultimate value transfers to other pursuits as well, Jewish homes are full of books while other homes may or may not be. Jewish homes have overflowing bookshelves. Throughout the generations we have given great honor to this intellectual pursuit…Torah study makes the nation and its people of the finest and highest quality.”"

"I would like to suggest that we should perhaps change direction in our efforts to bring about world peace. Up to now all the effort has been put into resolving specific conflicts: India–Pakistan, North–South Ireland, various African wars, Balkan wars, Russia–Chechnya, Israel–Arab, etc., etc. I’d like to suggest that we should shift emphasis and study war in general."

"War has been with us ever since the dawn of civilization. Nothing has been more constant in history than war."

"A person’s behavior is rational if it is in his best interests, given his information."

"All these cries for peace we hear in Israel, especially from our side, do not bring peace any closer -- they only push it away. If you chase peace it only eludes you. That's not game theory; that's history."

"The players in a game are said to be in strategic equilibrium (or simply equilibrium) when their play is mutually optimal: when the actions and plans of each player are rational in the given strategic environment – i.e., when each knows the actions and plans of the others."

"Repetition acts as an enforcement mechanism: It makes cooperation achievable when it is not achievable in the one-shot game, even when one replaces strategic equilibrium as the criterion for achievability by the more stringent requirement of perfect equilibrium."

"In many real-world situations, cooperation may be easier to sustain in a long-term relationship than in a single encounter. Analyses of short-run games are, thus, often too restrictive. Robert Aumann was the first to conduct a full-fledged formal analysis of so-called infinitely repeated games. His research identified exactly what outcomes can be upheld over time in long-run relations."

"He advised the audience to remember the Romans, and the fact that as "disagreeable" as they were, the Roman Empire ruled in peace for 400 years."

"The theory of repeated games is able to account for phenomena such as altruism, cooperation, trust, loyalty, revenge, threats (self-destructive or otherwise) – phenomena that may at first seem irrational – in terms of the “selfish” utility-maximizing paradigm of game theory and neoclassical economics."

"We can trust only ourselves. The president of the United States has to look out for U.S. interests -- that is what he was elected to do. He does not have to look out for Israel's interests, nor do I expect him to. The bottom line is that Obama is president of the United States -- not the world -- so when it comes to Israel's interests I trust the prime minister's discretion."

"The world aligns itself with those who are strong, even if they are the embodiment of evil. That is why [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu's insistence on addressing Congress in an effort to prevent a deal between the United States and Iran is vital..."

"Capitulation, sycophancy, and cowardice will only undermine us... Sometimes, you have to courageously follow your own path and not try to curry favor with anyone."

"It turns out that the Romans were champs in making peace. Their motto was that if you want to make peace, you need to prepare for war. They knew game theory."

"The strong equilibrium point f just described is one of "unrelenting ferocity" against offenders. It exhibits a zeal for meting out justice that is entirely oblivious to the sometimes dire consequences to oneself or to the other faitheful——i.e., those who have not deviated."

""Interactive Decision Theory" would perhaps be a more descriptive name for the discipline usually called Game Theory."

"I think game theory creates ideas that are important in solving and approaching conflict in general."