James Tobin Quotes

American economist (1918–2002)

James Tobin (March 5, 1918 – March 11, 2002) was an American economist who served on the Council of Economic Advisers and consulted with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and taught at Harvard and Yale Universities. He developed the ideas of Keynesian economics, and advocated government intervention to stabilize output and avoid recessions. His academic work included pioneering contributions to the study of investment, monetary and fiscal policy and financial markets. He also proposed an econometric model for censored dependent variables, the well-known Tobit model.

From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Showing quotes in randomized order to avoid selection bias. Click Popular for most popular quotes.

The important Keynesian insight is that a high propensity to save will not generate high national saving unless it goes into investment, into accumulation of real capital. The "paradox of thrift" makes this point in an extreme way. In certain circumstances, when there is no demand for investment around, the economy can be no better off, or even worse off, if a thrifty public cuts consumption.

[M]onetary assets fall into place as a part, but not the whole, of the menu of s; and the ing system is one sector, but not the only one, whose behavior must be specified.