Abhijit Banerjee quotes - page 2

Abhijit Banerjee is an American economist, internationally recognized for his groundbreaking work in development economics and poverty alleviation. His research combines innovative field experiments with economic theory to address global challenges. He is a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics for his contributions to fighting global poverty. Here are 43 of his quotes:

I think it is a very important point for India to create a bureaucracy that lives on the ground and gets its stimulus from how life is on the ground. (Abhijit Banerjee)
Most economies have a fair amount of tax evasion, depending on how their data systems are. View quote
Abhijit Banerjee
Climate change is something that we cannot fix alone - it is the original collective action problem - it will not work unless almost all the large economies of the world act together. View quote
Abhijit Banerjee
One advantage of not being in power is that we can dream of reshaping the world exactly as we please. View quote
Abhijit Banerjee
You don't boost growth by cutting taxes, you do that by giving money to people. View quote
Abhijit Banerjee
The Korean government is the first to declare that if you replace people with machines you have to pay a tax. It's a tax on robots. They make private companies internalise the social cost of unemployment. Social benefit is not the same as private benefit. We have to realise this. View quote
Abhijit Banerjee
Well-designed subsidies help the poor make the best of whatever opportunities they have; poorly designed ones either do very little or actually make things worse for them. View quote
Abhijit Banerjee
Good intentions and grand theories do not make a good programme. Programmes work best when they're based on a detailed und­er­standing of the problem being solved and how they are implemented on the ground. View quote
Abhijit Banerjee
Investors don't like being in a world where everything is held up by and waiting for an approval from a very small number of people. View quote
Abhijit Banerjee
Celebrate creativity and confidence in the face of adversity. View quote
Abhijit Banerjee
I was very lucky to be born into a very academic family. I was well-read, well-trained in mathematics. I had lots of advantages to start with. (Abhijit Banerjee)
Every nation necessarily inhabits a morally compromised space. All too often our ideals seem to be held to ransom by what we believe, rightly or wrongly, to be objective reality. View quote
Abhijit Banerjee
This is why universities, and civil society more generally, are so important for a democracy like ours, founded on a genuine idealism that we have a hard time holding on to. They provide a space to question whatever we are doing in the name of things we say we believe in or might believe in. View quote
Abhijit Banerjee
One great pleasure of being an academic is the ability to trade in ideas with your colleagues and students; it is not much fun being the only connoisseur of some fine point. View quote
Abhijit Banerjee
What makes a leader great is not the fact that she (or he) has all the answers, but the ability to inspire and empower us to find the answers. View quote
Abhijit Banerjee
If you want to leave move money in the hands of poor people, you cannot do it through personal income tax cuts. You have to just give them money. View quote
Abhijit Banerjee
One big mistake that we made in Delhi is that we made it a low-rise city which means that rich people have nice green colonies while the poor live in dusty areas. View quote
Abhijit Banerjee
We are specialists who have something special to say. We have had no problem with working in any state interested in evaluating their policies. View quote
Abhijit Banerjee

Abhijit Banerjee

Abhijit Banerjee - Image
Photo: Financial Times, CC BY 2.0
Occupation: American Economist
Born: February 21, 1961
Quotes count: 43