Robert J. Shiller
Robert Shiller, Professor of Economics at Yale University, is co-author, with George Akerlof, of Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism.
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2012-01-18
| Policymakers cannot afford to wait decades for economists to figure out definitively how government austerity affects growth. But, judging by the evidence that we have, austerity programs in Europe and elsewhere appear likely to yield disappointing results.... read |
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2011-11-21
| Economics is at the start of a revolution that is traceable to an unexpected source: medical schools and their research facilities. Neuroscience – the science of how the brain works – is beginning to change the way we think about how people make decisions.... read |
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2011-09-23
| Most confidence indices today are based on survey questions that ask respondents to assess the economy today or in the near future. But what today's debt fears in Europe and the US really reflect – and what is holding back consumption and investment – is widespread anxiety about long-term economic prospects.... read |
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2011-07-21
| The fundamental problem for much of the world today is that investors are overreacting to debt-to-GDP ratios, fearful of some magic threshold, and demanding fiscal-austerity programs too soon. We should worry less about debt ratios and thresholds, and more about our inability to see these indicators for the often-irrelevant constructs that they are.... read |
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2011-05-27
| If countries covered their risks by issuing a different kind of national debt, tied to their own GDP or a similar measure of economic success, many would have a much debt burden today. Just ask Japan.... read |
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2011-03-22
| Forecasting the next speculative bubble is a bit like predicting who will be running the government two elections from now. But some places appear a little more likely than others to give rise to bubbles, and right now one of those places is farmland.... read |
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2011-01-20
| The financial crisis has deflated professional economists' scientific pretensions, because they failed to predict it. Part of the process of pursuing the inexact aspects of economics must be speaking honestly to the broader public, learning from them, and then searching one’s soul to decide whether one's favored theory is really close to the truth.... read |
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2010-11-18
| Real long-term interest rates have fallen to historic lows in much of the world. This is an economic fact of fundamental significance, for the real long-term interest rate is a direct measure of the cost of business financing – and because current levels fly in the face of all the talk about the need to slash government deficits.... read |
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2010-09-20
| It is not true that if you break a mirror, you will have seven years’ bad luck. But if you allow a financial market to spin wildly until it breaks down, it really does seem - based on historical patterns - that you run the risk of years of economic malaise.... read |
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Who Should Safeguard Financial Stability?
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Robert J. Shiller 
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Central bankers around the world failed to see the current financial crisis coming before its beginnings in 2007, and thus did not act to relieve the pressures that led to it. But central bankers are still the people who are in the best political and institutional position to ensure financial stability.... read
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2011-01-20
| The financial crisis has deflated professional economists' scientific pretensions, because they failed to predict it. Part of the process of pursuing the inexact aspects of economics must be speaking honestly to the broader public, learning from them, and then searching one’s soul to decide whether one's favored theory is really close to the truth.... read |
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2010-11-18
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| Real long-term interest rates have fallen to historic lows in much of the world. This is an economic fact of fundamental significance, for the real long-term interest rate is a direct measure of the cost of business financing – and because current levels fly in the face of all the talk about the need to slash government deficits.... read |
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2008-11-13
| The world’s fundamental economic problem today is a staggering loss of business confidence - a weakening of what Keynes called the "animal spirits." One reason is that people know enough about the Great Depression to understand that, unlike previous economic convulsions, there are parallels with today.... read |
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2011-03-22
| Forecasting the next speculative bubble is a bit like predicting who will be running the government two elections from now. But some places appear a little more likely than others to give rise to bubbles, and right now one of those places is farmland.... read |
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2005-07-25
| Governments around the world want to promote entrepreneurship. Though most business start-ups will never amount to much, each little company is an experiment, and a great deal of experimentation is necessary to produce the occasional firm that can transform a nation’s economy – or even rise to international significance. In short, entrepreneurship is an incubator, and one that is essential to long-term economic success.... read |
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2010-03-12
| Few economists predicted the current economic crisis, and there is little agreement among them about its ultimate causes. So, not surprisingly, they are not in a good position to forecast how quickly it will end, either.... read |
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2010-09-20
| It is not true that if you break a mirror, you will have seven years’ bad luck. But if you allow a financial market to spin wildly until it breaks down, it really does seem - based on historical patterns - that you run the risk of years of economic malaise.... read |
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2005-09-26
| Asset prices– stocks, commercial real estate, and even oil – are, historically, at high levels around the world. Although history is often a good predictor of future trends, every now and then something fundamental changes that makes for a new pattern. The important question now is whether today’s high asset prices are the result of some such fundamental development, or whether bubbles have formed. ... read |
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2005-12-27
| Throughout the world, people suffer from a serious perception error that has inhibited them from taking concrete steps to protect themselves from inflation or deflation. The error is called the “money illusion ” – the belief that a nominal unit of currency is the best measure of value, even though its real value is unstable.... read |
2011-05-27
