Alan Blinder Quotations

What this illustrates is the virtue of being more plain-spoken and the dangers when you are not.

And the maestro surely wielded the chairman's baton with extraordinary skill. His stellar record suggests that the only right answer to the age-old question of whether it is better to be lucky or good may be: both.

"Murphys law of economic policy": Economists have the least influence on policy where they know the most and are most agreed; they have the most influence on policy where they know the least and disagree most vehemently.

If you try to give an on-the-one-hand-or-the-other- hand answer, only one of the hands tends to get quoted.

In the classic old business cycle, there would be a diminution in sales; it would take a little while for this information to reach corporate headquarters. And there would be an inventory pileup. And then - bam - businesses would react, sometimes violently, by cutting production.

There is a kind of a cascading chain, ... If one can't sell, then that business doesn't buy and that means the next business doesn't sell, and the previous business doesn't sell, and so on.

Public opinion is presumptively an input to policy formation in a democracy because politicians respond to it or at least are believed to respond [to it].

The last duty of a central banker is to tell the public the truth.

Life is not a multiple choice test, it's an open-book essay exam.

Never treat only one productivity number that seriously, ... What you have to remember is that productivity has always been very cyclical. When the economy sags, productivity sags.

One of the reasons for all the happy faces in retail this holiday shopping season is that gas prices are going down, down, down. Employment and income are doing well.

He was confident in his judgment, and he was right. The lesson is that sometimes you can't wait for the data to be definitive.

There is a kind of a cascading chain. If one can't sell, then that business doesn't buy and that means the next business doesn't sell, and the previous business doesn't sell, and so on.

His performance as chairman of the Fed has been impressive, encompassing and overwhelmingly beneficial -- to the nation, to the institution and to the practice of monetary policy,

His performance as chairman of the Fed has been impressive, encompassing, and overwhelmingly beneficial - to the nation, to the institution, and to the practice of monetary policy,

I think they're right on the curve but in danger of being behind the curve.

While Alan Greenspan may have enjoyed more than his share of good luck during his storied tenure as Fed chairman, he was also confronted with a wide variety of challenges that required subtlety, a deft touch and good judgment.

We will soon learn whether the Greenspan era has created a deep reservoir of faith in the Federal Reserve, or just in Alan Greenspan.

It's a worldwide shift. It started before Greenspan, it was furthered by Greenspan, and it will continue after.

The AFL-CIO sees a large stake in this disagreement that potentially goes beyond UPS workers.

It's not a lack of transparency when you stop giving information when there is nothing to give, and we're getting pretty close to that point.

The Fed really tried to throw some cold water on those who are saying the recession's over already. The optimists are declaring it over already ... I think there's a good chance they're wrong, and the Fed obviously is predicating policy on the basis that they are wrong.

The Fed is watching with every eye, ear, and nose it has for evidence that oil prices are creeping into core inflation.

His flexibility, his unwillingness to get stuck in a doctrinal straitjacket that becomes dysfunctional may be his greatest strength.

The employment numbers easily give the Fed reason to pause, but it doesn't necessarily mean they are finished with raising rates. They will want to see more evidence of slowing, both in the employment numbers and in other areas of the economy.

The current episode is vastly worse than that; there's only been the slightest bit of a paltry recovery in the labor market.