Diane Coyle > Quotes

“It turns out from a number of more recent studies that reported happiness is strongly positively linked with the change or growth in GDP per capita from year to year.”
― Diane Coyle, GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History - Revised and expanded Edition

“Variety is the spice of life because it is the natural enemy of adaptation.”
― Diane Coyle, The Economics of Enough: How to Run the Economy as If the Future Matters

“Grotesquely, there are cheerleaders for the king of Bhutan because of his claim that he seeks to increase gross national happiness, when Bhutan is one of the poorest and one of the more authoritarian countries in the world.”
― Diane Coyle, GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History - Revised and expanded Edition

“Growth alone is not enough for a good society—but neither is happiness alone.”
― Diane Coyle, The Economics of Enough: How to Run the Economy as If the Future Matters

“1970 the typical inhabitant was no better off than his or her counterpart in the year 1000, according to Maddison’s figures.”
― Diane Coyle, GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History - Revised and expanded Edition

“How we feel about ourselves, the joy we get from living, ultimately depends directly on how the mind filters and interprets everyday experience. Whether we are happy depends on inner harmony, not on the controls we are able to exert over the great forces of the universe.”
― Diane Coyle, The Economics of Enough: How to Run the Economy as If the Future Matters

“Generally any task that can be measured by the metrics of productivity—output per hour—is a task we want automation to do. In short, productivity is for robots.”
― Diane Coyle, GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History - Revised and expanded Edition

“It is, in the long run, a good thing that machines or robots take over activities they can do, freeing humans for the things only they can do.”
― Diane Coyle, GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History - Revised and expanded Edition

“Hal Varian, the chief economist at Google, reckons that free search via Google is worth $150 billion a year to users; of course he would say that, but his calculations seem reasonable. The economist Michael Mandel has estimated that “data” or information needs to be added as a third category to the traditional distinction between goods and services.”
― Diane Coyle, GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History - Revised and expanded Edition

“GDP is the way we measure and compare how well or badly countries are doing. But this is not a question of measuring a natural phenomenon like land mass or average temperature to varying degrees of accuracy. GDP is a made-up entity. The concept dates back only to the 1940s.”
― Diane Coyle, GDP: A Brief But Affectionate History

“The problem of climate change involves a fundamental failure of markets: those who damage others by emitting greenhouse gases generally do not pay. Climate change is a result of the greatest market failure the world has ever seen. The evidence on the seriousness of the risks from inaction or delayed action is now overwhelming. We risk damages on a scale larger than the two world wars of the last century. The problem and the response must be a collaboration on a global scale.”
― Diane Coyle, The Economics of Enough: How to Run the Economy as If the Future Matters

“Some of the revenues have simply moved elsewhere (to streaming services, say), but there is a lot of free listening. The gap between what a consumer pays and the value he or she receives from the purchase is called “consumer surplus,” and the growing prevalence of zero-priced goods and services online seems to be increasing consumer surplus.14”
― Diane Coyle, GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History - Revised and expanded Edition

“It is profoundly inequitable that the difficult starting point is largely the result of actions by the developed nations, but the numbers on population and future emissions are such that a credible response cannot come from the rich countries alone.”
― Diane Coyle, The Economics of Enough: How to Run the Economy as If the Future Matters

“There would certainly be wide agreement that more than 4 billion of the world’s 7 billion people are very far from having enough. At least 2 billion do not have enough to eat, do not have adequate housing and water, are unable to educate their children or afford health care. These “bottom of the pyramid” billions can hardly be considered greedy when they aspire to be consumers and buy the global brands that signal joining the modern economic world.”
― Diane Coyle, The Economics of Enough: How to Run the Economy as If the Future Matters

“The 'measurable' share of the US economy was down to 30 percent by 1990 Grilliches reckoned; it is 23 percent now. How should we define price, quantity, and quality in these contexts of ever more intangible output, variety explosion, information asymmetry?”
― Diane Coyle, Cogs and Monsters: What Economics Is, and What It Should Be

“It is important to distinguish between markets as a source and description of value, which is what critics like Michael Sandel challenge, and markets as a process for orchestrating economic activity.”
― Diane Coyle, Cogs and Monsters: What Economics Is, and What It Should Be

“The circumstances in which markets fail are exactly the circumstances in which governments fail too, because they are exactly the circumstances when private and collective interests diverge the most.”
― Diane Coyle, Cogs and Monsters: What Economics Is, and What It Should Be

“GDP statistics and Keynesian macroeconomic policy were mutually reinforcing.”
― Diane Coyle, GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History - Revised and expanded Edition

“But until we decide what “enough” means, we’ll never know whether we’ve won or not; we’ll never be happy.”
― Diane Coyle, The Economics of Enough: How to Run the Economy as If the Future Matters

“Indeed, the idea of the economy as a machine, regulated by appropriate policy levers, took firm hold.”
― Diane Coyle, GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History - Revised and expanded Edition