Knowledge Quotes

"We cannot simply assume that larger is better. Scale matters, and context matters even more."

"We are all participants in multiple overlapping systems of governance."

"We must study the rules of the game, not just the players."

"Without public sector investment in basic research, the private sector has nothing to commercialize."

"We need to democratize our understanding of where innovation really comes from."

"We've allowed ideology to cloud our understanding of where innovation really comes from."

"Economic data is the language through which we understand society."

"Patent systems concentrate knowledge in wealthy hands."

"We possess the knowledge to design fairer systems."

"The indigenous peoples possessed knowledge that no university in Spain could teach—the knowledge of living in harmony with their domain."

"We must be careful not to confuse correlation with causation in our understanding of human behavior."

"The capability to live a good life varies from person to person and place to place."

"Understanding poverty requires understanding the systems that perpetuate it."

"We cannot understand economic development without understanding the evolution of institutional frameworks."

"Transaction costs are often invisible but they determine the shape of our economic world."

"Institutions reduce uncertainty by creating stable expectations about how others will behave."

"The market is not natural; it is an institutional creation that requires constant maintenance and renewal."

"Institutional complementarities mean that changing one institution often requires changing many others."

"Competition of ideas within institutions is as important as competition of firms within markets."

"Institutions shape preferences as much as preferences shape institutions in a constant feedback loop."

"The most important institutional innovations are often invisible because they solve problems so thoroughly we forget the problems existed."

"Institutional analysis reveals that markets and hierarchies are not opposites but points on a spectrum of possible coordination mechanisms."

"Data reveals what ideology often obscures about wealth distribution."

"Historical archives contain evidence of how societies organized wealth differently."

"We have more knowledge about inequality now than ever before in history."

"We often assume the poor lack ambition, but what they lack is information and opportunity."

"Access to information changes everything. But first, people need to know that they don't know."

"When you really understand a problem, the solution often becomes obvious."

"The poor know their own lives better than any outsider ever will."

"When you empower someone with information, you also empower them to make different choices."