21 Quotes by Abhijit V. Banerjee

The poor stay poor here because they do not save enough.

We must arm ourselves with patience and wisdom and listen to the poor what they want. This is the best way to avoid the trap of ignorance, ideology and inertia on our side.

If the rules make such a difference, then it becomes very important who gets to make them.

But then it is easy, too easy, to sermonize about the dangers of paternalism and the need to take responsibility for our own lives, from the comfort of our couch in our safe and sanitary home. Aren't we, those who live in the rich world, the constant beneficiaries of a paternalism now so thoroughly embedded into the system that we hardly notice it?

Schools are available. In most countries, they are free, at least at the primarylevel. Most children are enrolled. And yet in the various surveys that we haveconducted around the world, child absentee rates vary between 14 percent and50 percent

Awareness of our problems thus does not necessarily mean that they get solved. It may just mean that we are able to perfectly anticipate where we will fail.

What is dangerous is not making mistakes, but to be so enamored of one’s point of view that one does not let facts get in the way. To make progress, we have to constantly go back to the facts, acknowledge our errors, and move.

There is always some cheap pleasant thing to tempt you.

Economics is too important to be left to economists.