Alan B. Krueger > Quotes

“Rather than street crime, I argue that a better analogy is to voting. Having a high opportunity cost of time—resulting, say, from a high-paying job and a good education—should discourage people from voting, yet it is precisely those with a high opportunity cost of time who tend to vote. Why? Because they care about influencing the outcome and consider themselves sufficiently well informed to want to express their opinions. Terrorists also care about influencing political outcomes. Instead of asking who has a low salary and few opportunities, to understand what makes a terrorist we should ask: Who holds strong political views and is confident enough to try to impose their extremist vision by violent means? Most terrorists are not so desperately poor that they have nothing to live for. Instead they are people who care so deeply and fervently about a cause that they are willing to die for it.”
― Alan B. Krueger

“Music, more than money, is the tonic of happiness. Music helps to create moments and social occasions, memories and emotions. This is the secret of music, and it is the reason that, as Neil Young famously sang, “rock and roll will never die.”
― Alan B. Krueger, Rockonomics: A Backstage Tour of What the Music Industry Can Teach Us about Economics and Life

“To truly understand and appreciate music, you need to understand economics.”
― Alan B. Krueger, Rockonomics: A Backstage Tour of What the Music Industry Can Teach Us about Economics and Life

“Behavioral economics tells us that people often focus too much on the wrong things, and tend to focus on aspects of the job that are salient. So, for example, the pay is salient, especially the starting pay.”
― Alan Krueger

“Amazon's founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, once told me that he is often asked, 'What's going to change in the future?' But he is rarely asked, 'What is not going to change?' 'That second question is actually more important than the first,' he said, 'because you can build a strategy around it.”
― Alan Krueger, Rockonomics: A Backstage Tour of What the Music Industry Can Teach Us about Economics and Life

“Americans spend more on potato chips than on recorded music.”
― Alan B. Krueger, Rockonomics: A Backstage Tour of What the Music Industry Can Teach Us about Economics and Life