In middle-income countries, inequality becomes a problem because you can see there is a layer of people who are doing well, while the poor are still stuck there. We have 300 million poor in India.
We should look closely on what is happening at the moment, guys with little moustaches can pop up everywhere now given this instable economic situation. A look into history shows us what that could mean.
Go out and collect data and, instead of having the answer, just look at the data and see if the data tells you anything. When we're allowed to do this with companies, it's almost magical.
I think the problem with schools is not too many incentives but too few. Because of tenure, teachers' unions, and the fact that teachers generally aren't observed in their classrooms, they can do whatever they want in class.
As a researcher, every once in a while you encounter something a little disconcerting. And this is something that changes your understanding of the world around you, and teaches you that you're very wrong about something that you really believed firm...
If you go and stop people at a supermarket and ask them for their receipt and say, 'Hey how much did you just spend?' middle class shoppers have no idea. The poor know what they just spent.
I absolutely loved Tina Fey's 'Bossypants' and didn't want it to end. It's hilarious as well as important. Not only did I laugh on every page, but I was nodding along, highlighting and dog-earing like crazy.
The standard growth theory tells us that economic growth in per capita basis comes from mainly two sources: capital deepening and total factor productivity growth, or TFP growth.
The direct investment of Japanese businesses to East Asian economies accelerates the reallocation of their production bases. Consequently, between Japan and the other East Asian countries, both exports and imports are growing substantially.
The aging and decreasing population is a serious problem in many developed countries today. In Japan's case, these demographic changes are taking place at a more rapid pace than any other country has ever experienced.
Economists have put themselves in a position where what they are doing is supposed to be impossible to understand for outsiders, so they don't even talk - sometimes not even with their girlfriend or boyfriend or friends - about what they are doing.
We found that the most exciting environments, that treated people very well, are also tough as nails. There is no bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo... excellent companies provide two things simultaneously: tough environments and very supportive environments.
Today brands are everything, and all kinds of products and services - from accounting firms to sneaker makers to restaurants - are figuring out how to transcend the narrow boundaries of their categories and become a brand surrounded by a Tommy Hilfig...
Would you bet your paycheck on a weather forecast for tomorrow? If not, then why should this country bet billions on global warming predictions that have even less foundation?
Tariffs that save jobs in the steel industry mean higher steel prices, which in turn means fewer sales of American steel products around the world and losses of far more jobs than are saved.
Elections should be held on April 16th- the day after we pay our income taxes. That is one of the few things that might discourage politicians from being big spenders.
What 'multiculturalism' boils down to is that you can praise any culture in the world except Western culture - and you cannot blame any culture in the world except Western culture.
Both free speech rights and property rights belong legally to individuals, but their real function is social, to benefit vast numbers of people who do not themselves exercise these rights.
Even the Soviet Union, with its huge nuclear arsenal, was a threat that could be deterred by the prospect of retaliation. But suicide bombers cannot be deterred. They can only be annihilated - preemptively and unilaterally, if necessary.
You don't send people to prison on the basis of what other people imagine, or on the basis of media sound bites like 'shooting an unarmed child,' when that 'child' was beating him bloody.
If you want to get each individual's honest opinion, you don't want that opinion to be influenced by others who are present, much less allow a group to coordinate what they are going to say.
