A Quote by Robert Kuttner

As a scholarly discipline, economics has always suffered from physics envy.

Robert Kuttner

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Always Discipline Economics Envy Physics Scholarly Suffered

Quote Author

Robert Kuttner
American - Journalist
Born: April 17, 1943

So, economics should emulate physics' basic ethos, but its search for precision in physics-like formulas is almost always wrong in economics.

Charlie Munger

Economics profession, they've been - they've been confident in various formulas, but economics is not physics. The same formula that works in one decade doesn't work in the next. Economics is a difficult subject.

Charlie Munger

Economists suffer from a deep psychological disorder that I call 'physics envy'. We wish that 99 percent of economic behavior could be captured by three simple laws of nature. In fact, economists have 99 laws that capture 3 percent of behavior. Economics is a uniquely human endeavor.

Andrew Lo

We judge economics by what it can produce. As such, economics is rather more like engineering than physics: more practical than spiritual.

Robert J. Shiller

I do sense, as compared with let's say the early '50s, there's somewhat more of a careerism. I don't think it's anything special to economics; it's equally true with physics or biology. A graduate education has become a more career-oriented thing, and part of that is because of the need for funding. In fact, that's a much worse problem in the natural sciences than it is in economics. So you can't even do your work in the natural sciences, particularly, and even to some extent in economics, without funding.

Kenneth Arrow

There is not a soul on Earth who can read the deluge of physics publications in its entirety. As a result, it is sad but true that physics has irretrievably fallen apart from a cohesive to a fragmented discipline. ... It was not that long ago that people were complaining about two cultures. If we only had it that good. today.

Abraham Pais

Going to the moon is not a matter of physics but of economics.

John R. Platt

Envy, envy eats them alive. If you had money, they’d envy you that. But since you don’t, they envy you for having such a good, bright, loving daughter. They envy you for just being a happy man. They envy you for not envying them. One of the greatest sorrows of human existence is that some people aren’t happy merely to be alive but find their happiness only in the misery of others.

Dean Koontz

People want to think of economics as a natural science, like physics, with the comforting reliability of simple-to-understand theories like F=MA. Unfortunately, it isn't. Economics is a social science, and the so-called theories are really social and moral constructs.

Nick Hanauer

With the variety of fields within economics, broadly conceived and the increasing specialization of scholarly world, the award of a Nobel Memorial Prize honors not only the individual scholar but, implicitly, also a special field or a distinctive method.

Simon Kuznets

That's the world we live in: when it comes to economics, people have emotions; it's not like chemistry or physics.

Robert J. Shiller

There are several books that I have-the Physics of Star Trek, Star Trek and Business, there are manuals on command style and countless scholarly papers that have been written about the significance of Next Generation.

Patrick Stewart

Envy is the most universal passion. We only pride ourselves on the qualities we possess, or think we possess; but we envy the pretensions we have, and those which we have not, and do not even wish for. We envy the greatest qualities and every trifling advantage. We envy the most ridiculous appearance or affectation of superiority. We envy folly and conceit; nay, we go so far as to envy whatever confers distinction of notoriety, even vice and infamy.