economists-from-scotland

"To every man of our Saxon race endowed with full health and strength, there is committed, as if it were the price he pays for these blessings, the custody of a restless demon, for which he is doomed to find ceaseless excitement, either in honest work, or some less profitable or more mischievous occupation. Countless have been the projects devised by the wit of man to open up for this fiend fields of exertion great enough for the absorption of its tireless energies, and none of them is more hopeful than the great world of books, if the demon is docile enough to be coaxed into it. Then will its erratic restlessness be sobered by the immensity of the sphere of exertion, and the consciousness that, however vehemently and however long it may struggle, the resources set before it will not be exhausted when the life to which it is attached shall have faded away ; and hence, instead of dreading the languor of inaction, it will have to summon all its resources of promptness and activity to get over any considerable portion of the ground within the short space allotted to the life of man."

"The fundamental idea of transaction costs is that they consist of the cost of arranging a contract ex ante and monitoring and enforcing it ex post, as opposed to production costs, which are the costs of executing a contract."

"R. C. O. Matthews (1986), "Presidential Address to the Royal Economic Society." as cited in Eggertsson (1990; 31-32)"

"Matthews described himself as writing economic history in the style of an economist. Sceptical of conventional economic models of "rational individualistic utility maximisation", his interests moved toward the institutional and psychological underpinnings of economic behaviour."

""The chief fault in English economists at the beginning of the [nineteenth] century was... that they did not see how liable to change are the habits and institutions of industry." Thus Marshall in his inaugural lecture as Professor of Political Economy in Cambridge, referring to Ricardo (Marshall 1885, p. 155). In the circumstances of that occasion, the remark may have been intended in some part as an olive branch, because the only other serious contender for the Chair had been the High Tory economic historian William Cunningham, Archdeacon of Ely, famous as an anti-theoretical institutionalist and famous also as a polemicist - he was the clergyman who once told his congregation that for him the bliss of Heaven would be incomplete if it lacked the pleasures of controversy."

"[Neoinstitutional Economics...] theory has made an indispensable contribution in recent times to advances of understanding in this area. But it seems to me that in the economics of institutions theory is now outstripping empirical research to an excessive extent. No doubt the same could be said of other fields in economics, but there is a particular point about this one. Theoretical modelling may or may not be more difficult in this field than in others, but empirical work is confronted by a special difficulty. Because economic institutions are complex, they do not lend themselves easily to quantitative measurement. Even in the respects in which they do, the data very often are not routinely collected by national statistical offices. As a result, the statistical approach which has become the bread and butter of applied economics is not straightforwardly applicable. Examples of it do exist, the literature on the economics of slavery being perhaps the most fully developed - not surprisingly because slavery is an institution that is sharply defined. But to a large extent the empirical literature has consisted of case-studies which are interesting but not necessarily representative, together with a certain amount on legal court cases, which are almost certainly not representative. Is this the best we can do? There is a challenge here on the empirical side to economists to see what is the best way forward."

"Smuggling is a crime, which occupies so prominent a place in the criminal legislation of all modem states, is wholly the result of vicious commercial and financial legislation"

"It is to labour... and to labour only, that man owes every thing possessed of exchangeable value. Labour is the talisman that has raised him from the condition of the savage — that has changed the desert and the forest into cultivated fields... Labour tho that has covered the earth with cities and the ocean with ships — of wealth that has given us plenty, comfort, and elegance, instead of want, misery, and barbarism."

"The division of labour is a consequence of the previous accumulation of capital... As the accumulation of capital must have preceded the division of labour, so its subsequent division can only be extended as capital is more and more accumulated. Accumulation and division act and react on each other. The quantity of raw materials which the same number of people can work up increases in a great proportion, as labour comes to be more and more subdivided; and according as the operations of each workman are reduced to a greater degree of identity and simplicity, he has, as already explained, a greater chance of discovering machines and processes for facilitating and abridging his labour. The quantity of industry, therefore, not only increases in every country with the increase of the stock or capital which sets it in motion; but, in consequence of this increase, the division of labour becomes extended, new and more powerful implements and machines are invented, and the same quantity of labour is thus made to produce an infinitely greater quantity of commodities"

"Probably no member of the English school has been so unhappy in his treatment of the subject or done the theory of interest such a disservice as McCulloch."

"The principle of laissez-faire may be safely trusted to in some things but in many more it is wholly inapplicable; and to appeal to it on all occasions savors more of the policy of a parrot than of a statesman or a philosopher."

"Suppose that a cask of new wine, which cost £50, is put into a cellar, and that, at the end of twelve months, it is worth £55, the question is: Should the £5 of additional value, given to the wine, be considered as a compensation for the time the £50 worth of capital has been locked up, or should it be considered as the value of additional labour actually laid out in the wine?"

"An approximately linear income tax schedule is desirable; and in particular negative income tax proposals are strongly supported,"

"What does an income tax schedule look like, which takes account of the trade-off between equity and efficiency? This question was first asked by Mirrlees (1971) who developed the standard model of the optimal nonlinear income tax. Since then innumerable papers have generalized, refined, or corrected his analysis. It has also been realized that the second-best approach to income taxation pertains to a wide variety of economic problems such as monopoly pricing or contract theory in general. In this respect Mirrlees’ article has opened an important and fascinating strand of economic thought."

"I must confess that I had expected the rigorous analysis of income taxation in the utilitarian manner to provide arguments for high tax rates. It has not done so."

"Economics takes a while to learn, even if much of it is in a way quite simple. It is simple to be wrong as well as to be right, and it is none too easy to distinguish between them."

"The income tax is a much less effective tool for reducing inequalities than has often been thought."

"Such is the disposition of men, that we value what is speculative and precarious, more than what is safe and beneficial."

"Men in general are very slow to enter into what is reckoned a new thing; and there seems to be a very universal as well as great reluctance to undergo the drudgery of acquiring information that seems not to be absolutely necessary."

"The nature of this trade, certainly not the most honourable in the world, affords room for much investigation and remark in a moral or humane point of view: in a political or commercial light it is perhaps less conspicuously an object of attention. It consists chiefly of commodities that are considered as holding a first rate place in the animal and the mineral world, for which in return the Africans receive the most rascally articles that the ingenuity of Europeans has found means to produce. In return to our fellow creatures, for gold, and for ivory, we exchange the basest of those articles that are suited to the taste or the fancy of a despicable set of barbarians. Whether the spirituous liquirs or the fire-arms that are sent there are most calculated for the destruction of the purchasers, might become a question not very easy to determine. The noxious quality of the one is at least equalled by the danger of attending the use of the other. There does not seem to be that regard to honour in this trade, which ought to make part of the nice character of the English merchant, unimpeachable, unimpeached, upon the 'Change of London or of Amsterdam. It seems as if we kept our honour for ourselves, and that with those barbarians (who are more our inferiors in address and cunning, than perhaps in any thing else) no honour, humanity, or equity, were at all necessary."

"All those things that make a nation richer, stronger, or more happy; or that tend to exalt national character, but that will not pay individuals, deserve public encouragement."

"She came recommended to me as someone who was very much a Labour person but also a very clever economist so I was very much looking forward to meeting her. And then this slip of a girl raced up at party conference and said 'I'm Yvette' and when I thought of all the experience she had had and all the brains that she had, it seemed to be impossible that someone so young was that person. She is very remarkable because she combines being very, very clever without any shred of arrogance which is quite unusual in a politician, I have to say. She also combines being very steely and determined but without being macho [...] She doesn't talk in a way that excludes people, so on the GMTV sofa, she can speak to people in a way that they understand."

"This dangerous rapist should not be in a women's prison and it should be clear that if someone poses a danger to women and committed crimes against women they should not be being housed in a women's prison."

"She's very sharp analytically; she gets to the absolute core of an issue very quickly. Certainly, seeing her in action with officials, they know they going to have to be well-briefed. So she's a very clever person; a good operator and also a pretty decent human being which is important in politics and a bit rare."

"I decided I don't want to go for the top job now. I could be working for another 25 years and I'd like to be reading bedtime stories to my children for another two or three years."

"Sexism in politics is nothing new when you're standing for election. But don't stand for election and it's almost as bad. Shockingly, David Cameron thought it acceptable to claim this week that my decision not to run for the Labour leadership was because my husband, Ed Balls, "stopped [me] from standing.""

"Nigel Farage is still trying to whip up fear and hatred towards refugees who are fleeing from conflict. It was extremely ill-judged of him to describe himself as a victim."

"Some in the Labour Party want to blame our defeat only on the leadership. Others want to blame it only on Brexit. Yet it was about both of those things and more. In our towns in Yorkshire, we knocked on thousands of doors trying to persuade people to stick with Labour. Some said they just didn’t want Jeremy Corbyn to be Prime Minister. Others were fearful that we wouldn’t stand up for national security. Some wanted Brexit done and felt angry and let down. We found little enthusiasm for Boris Johnson. One woman told me in tears that she was voting Tory for the first time and she was furious with us for making her feel like she had to do it."

"She was a formidable intellect and it's no surprise to me or anyone else around here that she's done as well as she has."

"I think the reason she's got so many votes in the Parliamentary Labour Party is because there's nobody, really, who doesn't like and admire Yvette... she doesn't make people feel rivalrous of her."

"I have to say, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the Ministers are like fraudsters in the fairy tale, telling gullible Liberal Democrat MPs about the beautiful progressive clothes that the emperor is wearing, if only they are clever enough and loyal enough to see them. And desperately, we have Liberal Democrats clinging to shreds of invisible cloth, reaching deep into their Liberal and Conservative history to pretend that they can be progressive now. They are claiming that Keynes might have backed the Budget. They are calling on Beveridge for support, kidding themselves that they can call on their history and that they are following in the footsteps of great liberal Conservatives like Winston Churchill, who supported the minimum wage, but the truth is that the emperor has no clothes. The truth is that if you look at the detail, the Budget is nastier than any brought in by Margaret Thatcher. Instead of Churchill, Keynes or the founders of the welfare state, the Liberal Democrats have signed up, with the Right Honourable Member for Chingford and his Chancellor, to cut support for the poor. It is perhaps apt that in this week of World Cup disappointments, it was actually a footballer who got it right. In 2002, after England were defeated in the World Cup by Brazil, Gareth Southgate reflected ruefully on England's performance and said: "We were expecting Winston Churchill and instead got Iain Duncan Smith." That is the reality for the Liberal Democrats now. With all their high hopes, they have betrayed the poor and the vulnerable, whom they stood up to defend. [The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb) rose] I will give way to the hon. Gentleman because I know he has a history of supporting people on low incomes and I do not know why he is betraying it now."

"Cut is the Sure Start maternity allowance. Has [the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith] no idea at all that supporting a family and getting the children out of poverty when the babies are born can save money from the public purse for years to come? Instead, he wants to cut support from the babes in their mothers' arms. At least Margaret Thatcher had the grace to wait until the children were weaned before snatching their support."

"I've been rather warming to Yvette Cooper over the last year or two. She was one of those new Labour women whom Tories loved to hate at first. I found her pretty irritating. There was something slightly cold and zombie-like in which she used the apparatchik-speak language of New Labour politics and never really seemed to engage with people. She seemed too much like an operative and not enough like a minister. But I've noticed her changing. She's relaxed. She's got funnier."

"Every man is a missionary, now and forever, for good or for evil, whether he intends or designs it or not. He may be a blot, radiating his dark influence outward to the very circumference of society; or he may be a blessing, spreading benediction over the length and breadth of the world: but a blank he cannot be. There are no moral blanks; there are no neutral characters. We are either the sower that sows and corrupts, or the light that splendidly illuminates, and the salt that silently operates; but being dead or alive, every man speaks."

"The benevolence of the Gospel lies in actions"

"Not till we come to a simple reliance on the blood and mediation of the Saviour, shall we know what it is either to have trust in God, or know what it is to walk before Him without fear, in righteousness and true holiness."

"To be benevolent in speculation, is often to be selfish in action and in reality. The vanity and the indolence of man delude him into a thousand inconsistencies. He professes to love the name and the semblance of virtue, but the labour of exertion and of self-denial terrifies him from attempting it. The emotions of kindness are delightful to his bosom, but then they are little better than a selfish indulgence—they terminate in his own enjoyment—they are a mere refinement of luxury. His eye melts over the picture of fictitious distress, while not a tear is left for the actual starvation and misery with which he is surrounded. It is easy to indulge the imaginations of a visionary heart in going over a scene of fancied affliction, because here there is no sloth to overcome—no avaricious propensity to control—no offensive or disgusting circumstance to allay the unmingled impression of sympathy which a soft and elegant picture is calculated to awaken. It is not so easy to be benevolent in action and in reality, because here there is fatigue to undergo—there is time and money to give — there is the mortifying spectacle of vice, and folly, and ingratitude, to encounter."

"The grand essentials of life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for"

"O Heavenly Father, convert my religion from a name to a principle! Bring all my thoughts and movements into an habitual reference to Thee!"

"I take one decisive and immediate step, and resign my all to the sufficiency of my Saviour."

"The Bible is like a wide and beautiful landscape seen afar off, dim and confused; but a good telescope will bring it near, and spread out all its rocks and trees and flowers and v__ulant fields and winding rivers at one's very feet. That telescope is the Spirit's teaching."

"The sum and substance of the preparation needed for a coming eternity is that you believe what the Bible tells you, and do what the Bible bids you."

"It has been said that there is nothing more uncommon than common sense."

"Christ came to give us a justifying righteousness, and He also came to make us holy — not chiefly for the purpose of evidencing here our possession of a justifying righteousness — but for the purpose of forming and fitting us for a blessed eternity."

"I want to feel my own nothingness, I want to give myself up in absolute resignation to God, to lie prostrate and passive at His feet, with no other disposition in my heart than that of merging my will into His will, and no other language in my mouth than that of prayer for the perfecting of His strength in my weakness. I desire from the abyss of my own nothingness and vileness to cry unto God that He might cause me to do as I ought, and to be as I ought."

"O God, impress upon me the value of time, and give regulation to all my thoughts and to all my movements."

"I feel my disease, and I feel that my want of alarm and lively affecting conviction forms its most obstinate ingredient; I try to stir up the emotion, and feel myself harassed and distressed at the impotency of my own meditations. But why linger without the threshold in the face of a warm and urgent invitation? "Come unto me." Do not think it is your office to heal one part of the disease, and Christ's to heal the remainder."

"Be assured, my dear Anne, that it is only by taking our lesson from God and doing the will of God, that we can either please Him in time, or be happy with Him in eternity."

"Live for something! Do good and leave behind you a monument of virtue that the storm of time can never destroy. Write your name in kindness, love, and mercy on the hearts of the thousands you come in contact with, year by year, and you will never be forgotten. Your name, your deeds, will be as legible on the hearts you leave behind, as the stars on the brow of evening. Good deeds will shine as the stars of heaven."

"This character wherewith we sink into the grave at death is the very character wherewith we shall reappear at the resurrection."