Jean Tirole > Quotes

“Finally, is it fair that the pollution caused, in China for example, by the production of goods exported to the United States and Europe be counted as Chinese pollution, and be covered by the system of permits to which all countries, including China, would be subject? The answer is that Chinese firms that emit GHGs when they produce exported goods will pass the price of carbon through to American and European importers so that rich country consumers will pay for the pollution their consumption induces. International trade does not alter the principle that payment should be collected where emissions are produced.”
― Jean Tirole, Economics for the Common Good

“Not only are we subject to cognitive biases, we also frequently seek out things that reinforce them. We interpret facts through the prism of our beliefs; we read the newspapers and seek the company of people who will confirm us in those beliefs; and thus we stick obstinately to these beliefs, whether or not they are correct.”
― Jean Tirole, Economics for the Common Good

“Wealth acquired by creating value for society is not equivalent to wealth that comes from economic rents. For example, a very important factor in the increasing inequality of wealth in many countries has been the increase in real estate prices.48 But the owner of a building, unlike the inventor of a new treatment for cancer, does not create value for society.”
― Jean Tirole, Economics for the Common Good

“We all suffer from flawed thinking and decision making.”
― Jean Tirole, Economics for the Common Good

“Inequality is expensive for two reasons, one connected with justice and one with efficiency.”
― Jean Tirole, Economics for the Common Good

“When we think about an economic problem, the first answer that occurs to us is not always the correct one.”
― Jean Tirole, Economics for the Common Good

“The truth is that we have little empirical knowledge about the connection between merit and success in most countries, and that is precisely the heart of the problem: in the absence of information, anyone can believe what they want.”
― Jean Tirole, Economics for the Common Good

“For an economist, climate change is a “tragedy of the commons.”
― Jean Tirole, Economics for the Common Good

“Posiblemente lo más diferenciador sea que no todos los investigadores en ciencias humanas y sociales abrazan el principio de individualismo metodológico tan querido por los economistas[118”
― Jean Tirole, La economía del bien común: ¿Qué ha sido de la búsqueda del bien común? ¿En qué medida la economía puede contribuir a su realización?

“Aghion’s conclusion is that we have to redesign fiscal systems so they distinguish clearly between the creation of value and the enjoyment of economic rents, even if, in practice, this distinction is not always easy to make.”
― Jean Tirole, Economics for the Common Good

“It is also difficult to define the boundaries within which we judge inequality.”
― Jean Tirole, Economics for the Common Good

“the 2008 crisis is a textbook case for the theory of information”
― Jean Tirole, Economics for the Common Good

“Por otra parte, ese fenómeno se ve reforzado por el deseo de la gente de mostrar a los demás o a sí mismos que son «gente de bien»; nuestro altruismo no es totalmente puro, sino que está motivado en parte por nuestro deseo de aparentar, de labrarnos una buena imagen social y personal.”
― Jean Tirole, La economía del bien común: ¿Qué ha sido de la búsqueda del bien común? ¿En qué medida la economía puede contribuir a su realización?

“The academic community is an attractive working environment,”
― Jean Tirole, Economics for the Common Good

“we use math not because we’re smart, but because we aren’t smart enough.”
― Jean Tirole, Economics for the Common Good

“because Judaism required the reading of the Torah and promoted literacy in Talmudic academies, the Jewish community’s human capital increased”
― Jean Tirole, Economics for the Common Good

“Como en las ciencias físicas o en las ingenierías, las matemáticas intervienen a dos niveles: la modelización teórica y la validación empírica. No puede haber fuertes controversias sobre la necesidad de utilizar la econometría (la estadística aplicada a la economía) para analizar los datos, pues un prerrequisito para la decisión es identificar las causalidades. Una correlación y una causalidad son dos cosas distintas; como en el chiste del humorista francés Coluche: «Cuando uno está enfermo, no debe ir al hospital: la probabilidad que tiene de morir en una cama de hospital es diez veces mayor que la de morir en la cama de su casa», un sinsentido completo incluso si se tienen en cuenta las enfermedades hospitalarias. La relación en este caso es de correlación, no de causalidad (pues, si no, habrá que suprimir los hospitales). Y únicamente una estrategia empírica basada en la econometría permitirá identificar un impacto causal y, por tanto, hacer recomendaciones de decisión económica.”
― Jean Tirole, La economía del bien común: ¿Qué ha sido de la búsqueda del bien común? ¿En qué medida la economía puede contribuir a su realización?

“Any serious solution to the problem can only be global.”
― Jean Tirole, Economics for the Common Good

“The contrast between economics and medicine is striking:”
― Jean Tirole, Economics for the Common Good

“taxi companies had either never thought of these innovations or just did not to bother to introduce”
― Jean Tirole, Economics for the Common Good

“El sesgo de la víctima identificable, por humano que sea, afecta a las políticas públicas; como dice el aforismo (con frecuencia atribuido a Stalin, pero de origen dudoso), «la muerte de un hombre es una tragedia; la de un millón de hombres, una estadística».”
― Jean Tirole, La economía del bien común: ¿Qué ha sido de la búsqueda del bien común? ¿En qué medida la economía puede contribuir a su realización?

“staying safely in the ivory tower is much more comfortable for academics,”
― Jean Tirole, Economics for the Common Good

“exacerbated eagerness to exploit the ignorance and prejudice of voters.”
― Jean Tirole, Economics for the Common Good

“Equality of opportunity in education aims to insure us against disparities arising from the situation in which we are born”
― Jean Tirole, Economics for the Common Good

“medical students at Harvard made significant errors5 when calculating the probability that a patient had cancer”
― Jean Tirole, Economics for the Common Good

“we have little empirical knowledge about the connection between merit and success”
― Jean Tirole, Economics for the Common Good

“hacking the website of an academic journal to change the referees’ reports.”
― Jean Tirole, Economics for the Common Good

“holding directorships;”
― Jean Tirole, Economics for the Common Good

“with”
― Jean Tirole, Economics for the Common Good

“social acceptability of digitization depends on us believing that our data will not be used against us,”
― Jean Tirole, Economics for the Common Good