If you torture the data enough, nature will always confess. - Ronald Coase

If economists wished to study the horse, they wouldn't go and look at horses. They'd sit in their studies and say to themselves, "what would I do if I were a horse?"

What is studied is a system which lives in the minds of economists but not on earth. I have called the result “blackboard economics.” The firm and the market appear by name but they lack any substance. The firm in mainstream economic theory has often been described as a “black box.” And so it is.

I can't remember [of a good regulation]. Regulation of transport, regulation of agriculture—agriculture is a, zoning is z. You know, you go from a to z, they are all bad. There were so many studies, and the result was quite universal: The effects were bad.