James Mirrlees quotes

James Mirrlees was a Scottish economist renowned for his work on the economics of information and incentives. His groundbreaking research addressed issues in optimal taxation and asymmetrical information. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for his influential contributions to the field. Here are 9 of his quotes:

I must confess that I had expected the rigorous analysis of income taxation in the utilitarian manner to provide arguments for high tax rates. It has not done so.

James Mirrlees

Economics takes a while to learn, even if much of it is in a way quite simple. It is simple to be wrong as well as to be right, and it is none too easy to distinguish between them.

James Mirrlees

The world's been pretty good at coming up with new ways of doing things.

James Mirrlees

You know there's problems - you can see all the poverty and so on - but it's quite another matter to know what you can do about it.

James Mirrlees

It's not going to be true that every country has the same technological possibilities, but there is no reason why it might not be more or less true. Broadly, that the idea that the same technologies should be available everywhere seems to me very plausible.

James Mirrlees

When things begin to go bad, the perception of people makes it worse.

James Mirrlees

An approximately linear income tax schedule is desirable; and in particular negative income tax proposals are strongly supported.

James Mirrlees

Encourage your own curiosity; pursue the problems based on that. Don't get diverted by trying to do things for your own advancement. In other words, don't be lured into responding to incentives.

James Mirrlees