Top 15 Jan Tinbergen Quotes

Educational policies deserve to be programmed not only with a view to improving education in the widest sense, but also in order to ináuence the income distribution.

An inequality-furthering phenomenon is technological development. But need it be? Increasingly we get the feeling that technological development is not simply something given, but that it may be guided, within limits.

The central question of economic policy is the question of the effectiveness of its various instruments.

The two preponderant forces at work are technological development, which made for a relative increase in demand and hence in the income ratio... and increased access to schooling, which made for a relative decrease.

What matters is the di¤erence between qualities available and qualities required by the demand side, that is by the organization of production.

It is my hope that in such a way we may again, as Marx claimed, find scientific arguments in the competition between various systems, but up-to-date scientific arguments rather than obsolete ones. This more fundamental research in economics deserves relatively more attention and resources than the more superficial versions of economic research directed at forecasting or analysing very short-term fluctuations in market prices, on which quite some money is being spent to-day.

It is also our hope that the interpretation of the socio-economic optimum as a set of institutions may help to get under way a discussion of a more scientific character than was usual so far about the relative merits of various existing socio-economic orders, especially those of Eastern and Western Europe, including such interesting cases as Sweden, Switzerland and Yugoslavia. A considerable amount of better information about various types of external effects will be one of the necessary ingredients if we want to give concrete content to such merit rating of various systems.

Models constitute a framework or a skeleton and the flesh and blood will have to be added by a lot of common sense and knowledge of details.

The advantages of models are, on one hand, that they force us to present a "complete" theory by which I mean a theory taking into account all relevant phenomena and relations and, on the other hand, the confrontation with observation, that is, reality.

First of all I want to remind you of the essential features of models. In my opinion they are: (i) drawing up a list of the variables to be considered; (ii) drawing up a list of the equations or relations the variables have to obey and (iii) testing the validity of the equations, which implies the estimation of their coefficients, if any. As a consequence of especially (iii) we may have to revise (i) and (ii) so as to arrive at a satisfactory degree of realism of the theory embodied in the model. Then, the model may be used for various purposes, that is, for the solution of various problems. The advantages of models are, on one hand, that they force us to present a "complete" theory by which I mean a theory taking into account all relevant phenomena and relations and, on the other hand, the confrontation with observation, that is, reality. Of course these remarks are far from new.

The dominant role played by... exporters’ and importers’ GNP and distance in explaining trade flows.

The factor of distance may also stand for an index of information about export markets.

The main sources of tension in today's world economy could be grouped under the following categories:

The world is in a process of a great transformation. In a considerable part of it a new economic order, "communism," is being vigorously tried out. Elsewhere an old order is passing as one country after another throws of the yoke of colonialism. The wholesale introduction of Western techniques and ways of life shaking the foundations of numerous beliefs and attitudes, for good and for evil.

p. 3; Cited in: Economia e finanças: anais do Instituto superior de ciências económicas e financeiras. (1953), p. 463