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" I probably learned most at MIT by teaching and working with Peter Diamond, who acted like a big brother to me during my time in the department. "
Eric Maskin
Working
Big Brother
Time
Related Quotes:
" Because mechanism designers do not generally know which outcomes are optimal in advance, they have to proceed more indirectly than simply prescribing outcomes by fiat; in particular, the mechanisms designed must generate the information needed as they are executed. "
Eric Maskin
Because
Information
Know
" The Nobel Prize is not very important for the winners - they are usually pretty successful people already. But it is valuable as a way of drawing the public's attention to important work in economics. "
Eric Maskin
People
Way
Work
" How do we ensure in the case of public goods that they are provided at all, and that they are provided at the right level, taking into account citizens' preferences? "
Eric Maskin
How
Public
Right
" Leo Hurwicz is the father of mechanism design theory and has inspired much of my work, and Roger Myerson is an old friend and collaborator and a tremendous economist. "
Eric Maskin
Leo
Friend
Father
" The theory of mechanism design can be thought of as the 'engineering' side of economic theory. "
Eric Maskin
Design
Side
Thought
" If I buy a car, I use the car, you don't, and the market for cars works pretty well. But there are many other sorts of goods, often very important goods, which are not provided well through the market. Often, these go under the heading of public goods. "
Eric Maskin
Pretty
Car
Go
" I like to work on a number of things simultaneously. If you're working on a variety of projects and if you get stuck on one of them, you can move to another without grinding your gears indefinitely. "
Eric Maskin
You
Work
Working
" Specifically, in the software industry, progress is highly sequential: progress is typically made through a large number of small steps, each building on the previous ones. "
Eric Maskin
Small
Progress
Building
" There are some things that we value as a public good that the markets can't deliver, like clean air. "
Eric Maskin
Like
Good
Clean
" At Tenafly High, I was lucky to have some dedicated teachers; I'm especially indebted to my calculus instructor, Francis Piersa, who opened my eyes to the striking beauty of mathematics. "
Eric Maskin
Eyes
Who
Teachers
" In various countries around the world, assets that had previously been in the hands of governments were sold off to the private sector in the hope that this would lead to a more efficient allocation, that these assets would be put to better use. "
Eric Maskin
Hope
Lead
Better
" I don't want to make public statements about issues that I have not studied in detail. "
Eric Maskin
Issues
Public
Make
" Many markets work best with little or no outside interference. But others - especially those subject to big 'externalities' - need a helping hand. "
Eric Maskin
Helping Hand
Work
Best
" Perhaps one day earthquakes, hurricanes and financial crashes will all be predictable. But we don't have to wait until then for seismology, meteorology and economics to become sciences; they already are. "
Eric Maskin
Financial
Day
Economics
" What we mean by an outcome will naturally depend on the context. Thus, for a government charged with delivering public goods, an outcome will consist of the quantities provided of such goods as intercity highways, national defense and security, environmental protection, and public education together with the arrangements by which they are financed. "
Eric Maskin
Together
Environmental
Education
" Much theoretical work, of course, focuses on existing economic institutions. The theorist wants to explain or forecast the economic or social outcomes that these institutions generate. "
Eric Maskin
Explain
Much
Work
" I choose questions to work on according to how much they excite me. "
Eric Maskin
Work
Me
Much
" When a bank calls in a loan, it obviously hurts the customer in question. But it also adversely affects other banks that have lent to this borrower. They are now less likely to be repaid and so can't as readily lend to their own customers. "
Eric Maskin
Customer
Bank
Own
" If banks anticipate government will come to the rescue should the credit market go badly awry, they may make loans that would otherwise be imprudent, e.g. subprime loans with little prospect of repayment. "
Eric Maskin
Rescue
Will
Go
" The market doesn't work very well when it comes to public goods. "
Eric Maskin
Work
Goods
Public
" In an industry with highly sequential innovation, it may be better for society to scrap patents altogether than try to tighten them. "
Eric Maskin
Better
Try
Society
" A contingent bailout policy - implicit or explicit - must be coupled with some regulation of what banks can and cannot do. For example, a ban on lending to uncreditworthy customers might well make sense. "
Eric Maskin
Example
Well
Sense
" I'm not a housing market expert, and I don't want to pretend to be one. "
Eric Maskin
Want
Pretend
Market
" Economic forecasting has actually got pretty good over the years, though admittedly, we don't always get it right. "
Eric Maskin
Right
Always
Good
" A properly designed tax system can strike a balance between helping the poor and, at the same time, giving people the incentive to work. "
Eric Maskin
Tax
Giving
Balance
" Markets work well with goods that economists call private goods. "
Eric Maskin
Economists
Work
Well
" The market is no god - it cannot solve every problem. "
Eric Maskin
Market
God
Cannot
" Of course, MIT was notable not just for its faculty but also for its students. And, facing such extremely bright kids as a rookie teacher was something like being thrown to the wolves. "
Eric Maskin
Bright
Students
Teacher
" There is universal consensus among experts that the earth's atmosphere is heating up - and that we are responsible for it by putting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We also know that the consequences of global warming are catastrophic. But how do we make sure that all countries reduce greenhouse gases? "
Eric Maskin
Earth
Consequences
Know
" I entered economics because of a course I took on 'information economics,' which I found fascinating. "
Eric Maskin
Found
Economics
Information