“We must give the system sufficient factors of stability to enable it to work; but we must not assume that these forces are so powerful as to prevent the system from being liable to fluctuations. There must be a tendency to rigidity of certain prices, particularly wage-rates; but there must also be a tendency to rigidity of certain price-expectations as well, in order to provide an explanation for the rigidity of these prices… Indeed we should do better to assume a good deal of variation in different people’s elasticities of expectations… Of course the way in which a population is divided with respect to this sort of sensitivity will vary very much in different circumstances… We have to be prepared to deal with a range of possible cases, varying from that of a settled community, which has been accustomed to steady conditions in the past (and which, for that reason, is not easily disturbed in the present), to that of a community which has been exposed to violent disturbances of prices (and which may have to be regarded, in consequence, as being economically neurotic.”
Source: Value and capital, (1939), p. 271–2; as cited in: Roberto Scazzieri, Amartya Sen, Stefano Zamagni (2008) Markets, Money and Capital: Hicksian Economics for the Twenty First Century, p. 161
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John Hicks 14
British economist 1904–1989Related quotes

Address at the Centennial Celebration Banquet of the National Education Association http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/all_about_ike/quotes.html (4 April 1957)
1950s

"Price Flexibility and Output Stability: An Old Keynesian View" (1993)

“Terrorism is the price of empire. If we do not wish to pay it, we must give up the empire.”
2000s, Where the Right Went Wrong (2004)

“We must be prepared to pay the price for peace, or assuredly we shall pay the price of war.”
Special Message to the Congress on the Threat to the Freedom of Europe (1948)
Context: The recommendations I have made represent the most urgent steps toward securing the peace and preventing war. We must be ready to take every wise and necessary step to carry out this great purpose. This will require assistance to other nations. It will require an adequate and balanced military strength. We must be prepared to pay the price for peace, or assuredly we shall pay the price of war. We in the United States remain determined to seek peace by every possible means, a just and honorable basis for the settlement of international issues.

The Influence of Literature upon Society (1800), Pt. 2, ch. 5

James Meade (1951), The theory of international economic policy, Vol. 1, p. 48; as cited in: Jacques Jacobus Polak (2001) The Two Monetary Approaches to the Balance of Payments, p. 13

Source: Economics Of The Welfare State (Fourth Edition), Chapter 4, State Intervention, p. 73