Below are some quotations I selected for George Stigler to go on an
economist's calendar.  If any of you have any "better" selections
please let me know.


A few ground rules for the discussion:

	1. Space is limited, so please accompany any suggested quotation
with a suggestion of which quotation to cut.

	2. The new quotation can be no longer than the cut quotation.
	
	3. Please give the source for any quotation you give--I will have to
get permissions for each.

Thanks,

Dave Colander



George Stigler

The basic role of the scientist in public policy, therefore, is that 
of establishing the costs and benefits of alternative institutional 
arrangements. Smith had no professional right to advise England on 
the Navigation Acts unless he had evidence of their effects and the 
probably effects of their repeal. A modern economist has no 
professional right to advise the federal government to regulate or 
deregulate the railroads unless he has evidence of the effects of 
these policies." "The Economist and the State", American Economic 
Review 55, no. 1 (March, 1965)

The main task of economics has always been to explain real economic 
phenomena in general terms, and throughout the last two centuries we 
have adhered to this task with considerable faithfulness, if not 
always with considerable success." "Economics or Ethics", From "The 
Tanner Lectures on Human Values, vol. 2" (Salt Lake City: University 
of Utah Press, 1981) (305, The Essence of Stigler)

"Smith and his predecessors and successors almost always concentrated 
on advising the state what it should do, or refrain from doing. I 
certainly did for the first decades of my life as an economist. 
Hardly ever did anyone undertake the different and more fundamental 
task of explaining what states actually do, of discovering what are 
the forces that determine which policies will actually be adopted by 
a government. And yet, what is the purpose in urging a state to have, 
say, free trade, as we economists have so vigorously done for two 
centuries, when protectionism is common and persistent?" (115, 
Memoirs of an Unregulated Economist)

No concept in economics-or elsewhere-is ever defined fully, in the 
sense that its meaning under every conceivable circumstance is clear. 
Even a word with a wholly arbitrary meaning in economics, like 
"elasticity," raises questions which the person who defined it (in 
this case, Marshall) never faced: for example, how does the concept 
apply to finite changes or to discontinuous or stochastic or 
multiple-valued functions? And of course a word like "competition," 
which is shared with the whole population, is even less likely to be 
loaded with restrictions or elaborations to forestall unfelt 
ambiguities." (234, Essays in the History of Economics)