Quotes by Ha-Joon Chang

About Ha-Joon Chang:

Ha-Joon Chang is a Korean institutional economist specialising in development economics. Currently a Reader in the Political Economy of Development at the University of Cambridge, Chang is the author of several widely-discussed policy books, most notably Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective (2002). Chang was ranked by Prospect magazine as one of the top 20 World Thinkers in 2013.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

95% of economics is common sense

Ha-Joon Chang

As a consumer, I don't create art, but I think whatever the message is, art has to touch you.

Ha-Joon Chang

Imagine if all those kings and dukes hadn't commissioned those crazy cathedrals, paintings and music... we'd still be living in sticks and mud. Because none of those things made any economic sense. Human beings' capacity to 'waste time' is a miracle ...

Ha-Joon Chang

Between the Great Depression and the 1970s, private business was viewed with suspicion even in most capitalist economies. Businesses were, so the story goes, seen as anti-social agents whose profit-seeking needed to be restrained for other, supposedl...

Ha-Joon Chang

If the world were full of the self-seeking individuals found in economics textbooks, it would grind to a halt because we would be spending most of our time cheating, trying to catch the cheaters, and punishing the caught. The world works as it does o...

Ha-Joon Chang

Once you realize that trickle-down economics does not work, you will see the excessive tax cuts for the rich as what they are -- a simple upward redistribution of income, rather than a way to make all of us richer, as we were told.

Ha-Joon Chang

Since the 1980s, we have given the rich a bigger slice of our pie in the belief that they would create more wealth, making the pie bigger than otherwise possible in the long run. The rich got the bigger slice of the pie all right, but they have actua...

Ha-Joon Chang

The best way to boost the economy is to redistribute wealth downward, as poorer people tend to spend a higher proportion of their income.

Ha-Joon Chang

People 'over-produce' pollution because they are not paying for the costs of dealing with it.

Ha-Joon Chang

Equality of opportunity is not enough. Unless we create an environment where everyone is guaranteed some minimum capabilities through some guarantee of minimum income, education, and healthcare, we cannot say that we have fair competition. When some ...

Ha-Joon Chang

Above a certain level of income, the relative value of material consumption vis-a-vis leisure time is diminished, so earning a higher income at the cost of working longer hours may reduce the quality of your life. More importantly, the fact that the ...

Ha-Joon Chang

Every market has some rules and boundaries that restrict freedom of choice. A market looks free only because we so unconditionally accept its underlying restrictions that we fail to see them.

Ha-Joon Chang

People always think they're in the middle of a revolution while they tend not to realize the enormity of a change that has happened in the past. The telegraph was a revolution, but who looks at it that way these days? The telegraph sped up the transp...

Ha-Joon Chang

The feeling of insecurity is inimical to our sense of wellbeing, as it causes anxiety and stress, which harms our physical and mental health. It is no surprise then that, according to some surveys, workers across the world value job security more hig...

Ha-Joon Chang

Charities are now working to give people in poor countries access to the Internet. But shouldn't we spend that money on providing health clinics and safe water? Aren't these things more relevant? I have no intention of downplaying the importance of t...

Ha-Joon Chang

The invention of the printing press was one of the most important events in human history.

Ha-Joon Chang

Markets are, in the end, man-made devices for utilitarian purposes, not a force of nature that we should not try to resist. If they end up serving the interests of only a tiny minority, as is increasingly the case, we have the right - and indeed the ...

Ha-Joon Chang

The economy is much bigger than the market. We will not be able to build a good economy - nor a good society - unless we look at the vast expanse beyond the market.

Ha-Joon Chang

We need to accept that consumption is not the end goal of our life and stop measuring our well-being simply on the basis of earnings. We need to explicitly take the quality of our work-related life into account in judging our well-being.

Ha-Joon Chang

Instead of reading a paper, we now read the news online. Instead of buying books at a store, we buy them on-line. What's so revolutionary? The Internet has mainly affected our leisure life.

Ha-Joon Chang

Author Bio

  • NameHa-Joon Chang
  • DescriptionEconomist
  • BornOctober 7, 1963
  • CountrySouth Korea
  • ProfessionEconomist