Top 6 Quotes & Sayings by W. Brian Arthur

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an economist W. Brian Arthur.

Last updated on December 18, 2024.

William Brian Arthur is an economist credited with developing the modern approach to increasing returns. He has lived and worked in Northern California for many years. He is an authority on economics in relation to complexity theory, technology and financial markets. He has been on the external faculty at the Santa Fe Institute, and a Visiting Researcher at the Intelligent Systems Lab at PARC. He is credited with the invention of the El Farol Bar problem.

Economist | Born: July 21, 1946

Source: Wikipedia

We're facing a danger that economics is rigorous deduction based upon faulty assumptions. Science after science gets that way from time to time. When it does, we're in real trouble.

W. Brian Arthur

When you mathematize something you distill its essence.

W. Brian Arthur

Complexity is looking at interacting elements and asking how they form patterns and how the patterns unfold. It's important to point out that the patterns may never be finished. They're open-ended. In standard science this hit some things that most scientists have a negative reaction to. Science doesn't like perpetual novelty.

W. Brian Arthur

If economics wants to understand the new economy, it not only has to understand increasing returns and the dynamics of instability. It also has to look at cognition itself, something we have never done before in economics.

W. Brian Arthur

The invisible hand is not perfect. Indeed, the invisible hand is a little bit arthritic ... I'm a believer in free markets, but I think we need to be less naïve. We need to accept that markets give us pretty good solutions, but occasionally they will lock in something inferior.

W. Brian Arthur

Economists got away from really questioning how the world works, how decisions actually got made. If something doesn't conform to neoclassical models ... people are not somehow behaving themselves properly.

W. Brian Arthur

Top 6 Quotes & Sayings by W. Brian Arthur

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