Arthur Cecil Pigou: Economics

Arthur Cecil Pigou was British economist. Explore interesting quotes on economics.
Arthur Cecil Pigou: 16 quotes0 likes

“Even if the constants which economists wish to determine were less numerous, and the method of experiment more accessible, we should still be faced with the fact that the constants themselves are different at different times. The gravitation constant is the same always. But the economic constants — these elasticities of demand and supply — depending, as they do, upon human consciousness, are liable to vary. The constitution of the atom, as it were, and not merely its position, changes under the influence of environment.”

Arthur Cecil Pigou

Source: The Economics of Welfare (1920), Ch. 1 : Welfare and Economic Welfare, § 4

“If it were not for the hope that a scientific study of men's social actions may lead, not necessarily directly or immediately, but at some time and in some way, to practical results in social improvement, not a few students of these actions would regard the time devoted to their study as time misspent. That is true of all social sciences, but especially true of economics. For economics "is a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life"; and it is not in the ordinary business of life that mankind is most interesting or inspiring.”

Arthur Cecil Pigou

Source: The Economics of Welfare (1920), Ch. 1 : Welfare and Economic Welfare, § 1

“It is not pretended that, at the present stage of its development, economic science is able to provide an organon even remotely approaching to what it imagines for itself as its ideal.”

Arthur Cecil Pigou

Source: The Economics of Welfare (1920), Ch. 1 : Welfare and Economic Welfare, § 4

“Wonder, Carlyle declared, is the beginning of philosophy. It is not wonder, but rather the social enthusiasm which revolts from the sordidness of mean streets and the joylessness of withered lives, that is the beginning of economic science. Here, if in no other field, Comte's great phrase holds good: "It is for the heart to suggest our problems; it is for the intellect to solve them…. The only position for which the intellect is primarily adapted is to be the servant of the social sympathies."”

Arthur Cecil Pigou

Source: The Economics of Welfare (1920), Ch. 1 : Welfare and Economic Welfare, § 1