Author Profile
Abhijit Banerjee
1961 • American • Economist
7
Total Quotes
Top Topics
Collected Meditations
Showing 7 quotesOne problem with globalisation is that bad ideas seem to travel faster than good ones; first there was smearing tomato ketchup on everything; then drinking sugar-soaked cocktails ('Cosmo'-politanism) instead of our traditional whisky soda, and now this idea that we should abandon the poor to their fate in order to protect their dignity.— Abhijit Banerjee
topics:
Travel
Here is an entirely banal idea that I think has the potential to change the world: Take evidence seriously. Taking evidence seriously does not mean privileging numbers over all other forms of knowledge - theories, narratives, images. Nor does it mean the kind of radical skepticism that questions everything to the point where no action is possible.— Abhijit Banerjee
topics:
Knowledge
Independence day is an interesting time to reflect on our strange fealty to institutions that the British left us, including those that were explicitly set up to be used against us.— Abhijit Banerjee
topics:
Independence
I mean, I think it's a two-way relationship: I think you should not have too much faith in your own rationality. You should not have too much faith in the rationality of, you know, anybody else either. We all learn together about the way the world is, and I think it's a sort of antidote to wishful thinking of all kinds.— Abhijit Banerjee
It is possible that Modi sees his life as evidence that hard physical work can triumph over every disadvantage, but if so, most of us Indians do not share his faith.— Abhijit Banerjee
topics:
Faith
It is undeniable that the looming environmental crisis is partly the consequence of population growth.— Abhijit Banerjee
topics:
Environmental
What's nice about experiments is that they are much more closely tied to what theorists think about the world than normal empirical research. You can design your experiment to exactly ask the question you want to ask. This is not true about normal empirical research.— Abhijit Banerjee
topics:
Design