Dani Rodrik > Quotes

“If economics were only about profit maximization, it would be just another name for business administration. It is a social discipline, and society has other means of cost accounting besides market prices.”
― Dani Rodrik, The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy

“The correct answer to almost any question in economics is: It depends.”
― Dani Rodrik, Economics Rules: The Rights and Wrongs of the Dismal Science

“The economics we need is of the "seminar room" variety, not the "rule-of-thumb" kind. It is an economics that recognizes its limitations and caveats and knows that the right message depends on the context. The fine print is what economists have to contribute.”
― Dani Rodrik, The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy

“A politician who represents the interests primarily of economic elites must find other means of appealing to the masses. Such alternatives are provided by the politics of nationalism, sectarianism, and identity.”
― Dani Rodrik, Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy

“When globalization collides with domestic politics, the smart money bets on politics.”
― Dani Rodrik, The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy

“Economic growth and development are possible only through the accumulation of capabilities over time, in areas ranging from skills and technologies to public institutions. Globalization on its own does not generate these capabilities; it simply allows nations to leverage better those that they already possess.”
― Dani Rodrik, The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy

“The world is better served by syncretic economists and policymakers who can hold multiple ideas in their heads than by ‘one-handed’ economists who promote one big idea regardless of context.”
― Dani Rodrik

“In much the same way, the rise of the religious right and, with it, culture wars over “family values” and other highly polarizing issues (for example, immigration) have served to insulate American politics from the sharp rise in economic inequality since the late 1970s. Right-wing media outlets and think tanks have spun tales that led voters with stagnating incomes to attribute their hardship to minorities—African Americans, immigrants, women on welfare—that the government has supposedly favored”
― Dani Rodrik, Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy

“Many models are constructed to account for regularly observed phenomena. By design, their direct implications are consistent with reality. But others are built up from first principles, using the profession’s preferred building blocks. They may be mathematically elegant and match up well with the prevailing modeling conventions of the day. However, this does not make them necessarily more useful, especially when their conclusions have a tenuous relationship with reality. Macroeconomists have been particularly prone to this problem. In recent decades they have put considerable effort into developing macro models that require sophisticated mathematical tools, populated by fully rational, infinitely lived individuals solving complicated dynamic optimization problems under uncertainty. These are models that are “microfounded,” in the profession’s parlance: The macro-level implications are derived from the behavior of individuals, rather than simply postulated. This is a good thing, in principle. For example, aggregate saving behavior derives from the optimization problem in which a representative consumer maximizes his consumption while adhering to a lifetime (intertemporal) budget constraint.† Keynesian models, by contrast, take a shortcut, assuming a fixed relationship between saving and national income. However, these models shed limited light on the classical questions of macroeconomics: Why are there economic booms and recessions? What generates unemployment? What roles can fiscal and monetary policy play in stabilizing the economy? In trying to render their models tractable, economists neglected many important aspects of the real world. In particular, they assumed away imperfections and frictions in markets for labor, capital, and goods. The ups and downs of the economy were ascribed to exogenous and vague “shocks” to technology and consumer preferences. The unemployed weren’t looking for jobs they couldn’t find; they represented a worker’s optimal trade-off between leisure and labor. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these models were poor forecasters of major macroeconomic variables such as inflation and growth.8 As long as the economy hummed along at a steady clip and unemployment was low, these shortcomings were not particularly evident. But their failures become more apparent and costly in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008–9. These newfangled models simply could not explain the magnitude and duration of the recession that followed. They needed, at the very least, to incorporate more realism about financial-market imperfections. Traditional Keynesian models, despite their lack of microfoundations, could explain how economies can get stuck with high unemployment and seemed more relevant than ever. Yet the advocates of the new models were reluctant to give up on them—not because these models did a better job of tracking reality, but because they were what models were supposed to look like. Their modeling strategy trumped the realism of conclusions. Economists’ attachment to particular modeling conventions—rational, forward-looking individuals, well-functioning markets, and so on—often leads them to overlook obvious conflicts with the world around them.”
― Dani Rodrik, Economics Rules: The Rights and Wrongs of the Dismal Science

“What is a nation? A body of associates living under one common law and represented by the same legislature.”
― Dani Rodrik, Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy

“a politics based on cultural values and symbolism rather than bread-and-butter interests. When politics is waged on these grounds, elections are won by those who are most successful at “priming” our latent cultural and psychological markers, not those who best represent our economic interests.”
― Dani Rodrik, Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy

“In a famous hoax, physicist Alan Sokal submitted an article to a leading journal of cultural studies purporting to describe how quantum gravity could produce a “liberatory postmodern science.” The article, which parodied the convoluted style of argument in the fashionable academic world of cultural studies, was promptly published by the editors. Sokal announced that his intention was to test the intellectual standards of the discipline by checking whether the journal would publish a piece “liberally salted with nonsense.” Sokal, “A Physicist Experiments with Cultural Studies,” April 15, 1996,”
― Dani Rodrik, Economics Rules: The Rights and Wrongs of the Dismal Science

“En la actualidad, la diferencia está en que el comercio internacional se ha desplazado al centro del debate político. Durante las recientes elecciones de Estados Unidos, los candidatos a la presidencia Bernie Sanders y Donald Trump hicieron de la oposición a los tratados comerciales una de las bases fundamentales de su campaña. Teniendo en cuenta el clima político del momento y a juzgar por el tono de los otros candidatos, defender la globalización equivalía a un suicidio electoral. La posterior victoria de Trump puede atribuirse, al menos en parte, a su línea dura en lo tocante al comercio y a su promesa de renegociar los tratados que, según él, beneficiaban a otras naciones a expensas de Estados Unidos.”
― Dani Rodrik, Hablemos claro sobre el comercio mundial: Ideas para una globalización inteligente (Deusto)

“Thus was born the postindustrial economy. For some, work became more pleasant. For those with the skills, capital, and savvy to prosper in the postindustrial age, services offered inordinate opportunities”
― Dani Rodrik, Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy

“We have arrived at one of the central paradoxes of economics: uniformity amid diversity. Economists work with a plethora of models, pointing in all kinds of contradictory directions. Yet when it comes to the issues of the day, their views often converge in ways that cannot be justified by the strength of the available evidence.”
― Dani Rodrik, Economics Rules: The Rights and Wrongs of the Dismal Science

“Field experiments to date have shown that microfinance—the provision of small loans, typically to women or groups of women—is not particularly effective in reducing poverty.14”
― Dani Rodrik, Economics Rules: The Rights and Wrongs of the Dismal Science

“cuando la integración económica y monetaria no deja otra opción, a las democracias les cuesta tragar la amarga píldora de la austeridad. Y cuando la globalización colisiona con la política nacional, los inversores inteligentes apuestan por el equipo local. La soberanía nacional sólo puede reprimirse durante un tiempo.”
― Dani Rodrik, Hablemos claro sobre el comercio mundial: Ideas para una globalización inteligente (Deusto)

“En octubre de 2016, la primera ministra británica Theresa May sorprendió a muchos cuando despotricó contra la idea de ciudadanía global. «Si crees que eres un ciudadano del mundo —dijo— no eres ciudadano de ninguna parte.»”
― Dani Rodrik, Hablemos claro sobre el comercio mundial: Ideas para una globalización inteligente (Deusto)

“Es posible que el discurso de Trump y de otros populistas sea exagerado, pero pocos seguirán negando que los agravios subyacentes son reales. La globalización no ha beneficiado a todo el mundo. Muchas familias trabajadoras han sido devastadas por el impacto de las importaciones a bajo coste de China, México y otros lugares.1 Y los grandes beneficiados han sido los financieros y los profesionales especializados capaces de aprovecharse de los mercados en expansión. Aunque la globalización no ha sido la única y ni siquiera la mayor fuerza impulsora de la desigualdad en las economías avanzadas, sí ha sido un elemento que ha contribuido de manera decisiva a ella. Mientras tanto, los economistas se han esforzado por obtener grandes beneficios de los recientes acuerdos comerciales para la economía en su conjunto.”
― Dani Rodrik, Hablemos claro sobre el comercio mundial: Ideas para una globalización inteligente (Deusto)

“The fracas was frequently portrayed in the media as two world-famous Harvard professors brought low by a graduate student from a lesser-known, unorthodox department. This is largely hyperbole. But the clash did illustrate an import aspect of economics—something that the profession shares with other sciences: Ultimately, what determines the standing of a piece of research is not the affiliation, status, or network of the author; it is how well it stacks up to the research criteria of the profession itself. The authority of the work derives from its internal properties—how well it is put together, how convincing the evidence is—not from the identity, connections, or ideology of the researcher. And because these standards are shared within the profession, anyone can point to shoddy work and say it is shoddy.¶¶ This may not seem particularly impressive, unless you consider how unusual it is compared to many other social sciences or much of the humanities.## It would be truly rare in those other fields for a graduate student to get much mileage challenging a senior scholar’s work, as happens with some frequency in economics. But because models enable the highlighting of error, in economics anyone can do it.”
― Dani Rodrik, Economics Rules: The Rights and Wrongs of the Dismal Science

“Hay muchísimo en juego. La globalización mal gestionada está teniendo importantes consecuencias, no sólo en Estados Unidos, sino también en el resto del mundo desarrollado —en especial en Europa— y en los países con ingresos bajos y medios en los que viven la mayoría de los trabajadores del mundo. Es de capital importancia lograr un equilibrio entre la apertura económica y el derecho a la gestión del espacio político.”
― Dani Rodrik, Hablemos claro sobre el comercio mundial: Ideas para una globalización inteligente (Deusto)

“These problems are compounded by the fact that accepted practice does not require economists to think through the conditions under which their models are useful. Asked point-blank, they can state chapter and verse all the assumptions needed to generate a particular result; that is, after all, the point of modeling. But ask them whether the model is more relevant to Bolivia or to Thailand, or whether it resembles more the market for cable TV or the market for oranges, and they will have a hard time producing an articulate answer. The standards of the profession require that the modeler make only some general claims about how what he or she is doing is relevant to the real world. It is left to the reader or the user of the model to infer the specific circumstances in which the model can help us better understand reality.§ This fudge factor increases the chances of malpractice. Models lifted out of their original context can be used in settings for which they are inappropriate.”
― Dani Rodrik, Economics Rules: The Rights and Wrongs of the Dismal Science

“Pocos han tratado la tensión entre nuestras diferentes identidades —local, nacional y global— con tanta profundidad como el filósofo Kwame Anthony Appiah. En esta época de «desafíos planetarios e interconexión entre países —escribió en respuesta a la afirmación de May—, nunca ha sido tan necesario como ahora el sentimiento de un destino humano común».48 Es difícil no estar de acuerdo.”
― Dani Rodrik, Hablemos claro sobre el comercio mundial: Ideas para una globalización inteligente (Deusto)

“Por otro lado, en las normas laborales y medioambientales o en la regulación financiera hay escasas pruebas de carreras parecidas descendentes. A menudo la naturaleza geográficamente limitada de las jurisdicciones nacionales presenta una restricción natural al impulso descendente. Si quieres ser partícipe de esos servicios, tienes que estar en esa jurisdicción. Pero la competencia tributaria del impuesto de sociedades también es un recordatorio de que los costes y beneficios no tienen por qué anularse siempre exactamente. Aunque no sea un sustituto perfecto del abastecimiento local, el comercio internacional permite que desde una jurisdicción con impuestos bajos una empresa sirva a un mercado con impuestos elevados. El problema se agudiza en especial cuando el acuerdo en cuestión tiene un motivo solidario y es explícitamente redistributivo (como en muchos ejemplos tributarios). En tales casos, es deseable impedir un «arbitraje regulador», incluso si ello significa endurecer los controles fronterizos.”
― Dani Rodrik, Hablemos claro sobre el comercio mundial: Ideas para una globalización inteligente (Deusto)

“Lo que concede especial relevancia política al comercio es que, a menudo, plantea problemas de equidad como no lo hace el otro artífice principal de la desigualdad: la tecnología. Si pierdo el empleo porque la competencia innova y lanza un producto nuevo, no tengo demasiados argumentos para quejarme. Podría tener un motivo de queja legítimo si es más competitiva porque externaliza la producción a empresas que hacen cosas que aquí serían ilegales —por ejemplo, impedir que sus trabajadores se organicen y lleven a cabo negociaciones colectivas—. Lo que a la gente suele preocuparle no es la desigualdad en sí. El problema es la desigualdad injusta, cuando nos vemos obligados a competir según reglas básicas distintas.3”
― Dani Rodrik, Hablemos claro sobre el comercio mundial: Ideas para una globalización inteligente (Deusto)

“Una condición previa para la creación de un verdadero espacio político es la transferencia de soberanía a entidades supranacionales. A nadie le gusta ceder soberanía nacional, ni a los políticos de derechas ni a los de izquierdas. No obstante, al negar el hecho evidente de que la viabilidad de la eurozona depende de imponer límites sustanciales a la soberanía, los líderes europeos han estado engañando a sus votantes, retrasando la europeización de la política democrática y elevando los costes económicos y políticos del cálculo final.”
― Dani Rodrik, Hablemos claro sobre el comercio mundial: Ideas para una globalización inteligente (Deusto)

“El diseño de las instituciones está determinado por un equilibrio fundamental. Por un lado, las relaciones y la heterogeneidad en las preferencias empujan al gobierno hacia abajo. Por otro, la escala y el alcance de los beneficios de la integración del mercado empujan al gobierno hacia arriba. Las soluciones extremas rara vez son la mejor opción. Lo mejor a lo que podemos aspirar es a una solución intermedia, un mundo dividido en diversos sistemas de gobierno. Nuestra incapacidad a la hora de interiorizar las lecciones de este sencillo argumento nos lleva a callejones sin salida. Impulsamos los mercados más allá de lo que su gobierno puede soportar. Establecemos normas globales que no tienen en cuenta la diversidad subyacente en cuanto a necesidades y preferencias. Degradamos al Estado-nación sin compensarlo con mejoras en el gobierno. El fracaso radica en el corazón de los males no abordados de la globalización, así como en el empeoramiento de la salud de nuestras democracias.”
― Dani Rodrik, Hablemos claro sobre el comercio mundial: Ideas para una globalización inteligente (Deusto)

“No obstante, es de esperar que siempre que se planteen acuerdos comerciales los economistas repitan como loros las maravillas de la ventaja comparativa y el libre comercio. Han menospreciado de manera constante las preocupaciones distributivas, aun cuando ahora está claro que, por ejemplo, el impacto distributivo del Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte o la incorporación de China a la Organización Mundial del Comercio han tenido una importancia significativa para las comunidades de Estados Unidos más directamente afectadas. Han sobrevalorado la magnitud de los beneficios globales de los tratados de comercio, si bien dichos beneficios han sido relativamente pequeños desde, por lo menos, la década de los noventa.”
― Dani Rodrik, Hablemos claro sobre el comercio mundial: Ideas para una globalización inteligente (Deusto)

“inequality, exclusion, and duality became more marked in countries where skills were poorly distributed, and many services approximated the textbook ideal of impersonal, unfettered markets. The United States, where many workers are forced to hold multiple jobs in order to make an adequate living, remains the canonical example of this model.”
― Dani Rodrik, Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy

“If the super-rich believe that they are no longer part of society and have little need of government, it is not because this belief corresponds to objective reality.”
― Dani Rodrik, Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy