Tjalling Koopmans: Other

Tjalling Koopmans was Dutch American economist. Explore interesting quotes on other.
Tjalling Koopmans: 32 quotes0 likes

“Decisions and plans made by others… [can be judged to be] quantitatively at least as important as the primary uncertainty arising from random acts of nature and unpredictable changes in consumers' preferences.”

Tjalling Koopmans

Source: Three Essays (1957), p. 163; as cited in: Richard Langlois (1989) Economics as a Process. p. 181

“While it was long possible and sometimes tempting for physicists to deny the usefulness of the molecular hypothesis, we economists have the good luck of being some of the ‘molecules’ of economic life ourselves, and of having the possibility through human contacts to study the behavior of other ‘molecules’.”

Tjalling Koopmans

Tjalling Koopmans in: Review of economics and statistics, Vol. 31 -(1949), p. 87

“According to a frequently cited definition, economics is the study of “best use of scarce resources.” The definition is incomplete. “Second best” use of resources, and outright wasteful uses, have equal claim to attention. They are the other side of the coin.”

Tjalling Koopmans

Source: Concepts of Optimality and Their Uses, 1975, p. 239: Lead sentence

“One can in particular interpret the proposition as a statement conditions under which the simplicity of incentive structure and the economies of information handling characteristic of a competitive market organization can be secured without loss of efficiency of allocation… The price system carries to each producer, resource holder, or consumer a summary of information about the production possibilities, resource availabilities and preferences of all other decision makers. Under the conditions postulated, this summary is all that is needed to keep all decision makers reconciled with a Pareto optimal state once it has been established.”

Tjalling Koopmans

Source: Three Essays (1957), p. 53, as cited in: Harold Kincaid, ‎Don Ross (2009) The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Economics. p. 128

“The principal customers aimed for are other economists or members of other professions, who are somewhat closer to the making of policy recommendations… The question of the clientèle is even more baffling when the problem concerns growth paths for time spans covering several generations. What can at best be recommended in that case is the signal the present generation gives, the tradition it seeks to strengthen or establish, for succeeding generations to take off from.”

Tjalling Koopmans

Source: Concepts of Optimality and Their Uses, 1975, p. 244, as cited in: Vincent Martinet (2012) Economic Theory and Sustainable Development. p. 90