Quotessence
Home / Authors / Robert H. Frank
Robert H. Frank

Robert H. Frank Quotes

Professor

Filter quotes by topic

AllPeopleGovernmentIfsWayEconomicSpendingFactsGoalHouseJobsPercentAchieveBiggerHigherInterestMansionsPartyRelativeWasteAccepting

Famous Robert H. Frank Quotes

“Questions like, "Is my suit OK?", or "Is my job performance satisfactory?", are impossible to think about in the absence of a suitable frame of reference. For an interview suit to serve its purpose, it must make you look good relative to other candidates for the job you want. For your job performance to be satisfactory, it must compare favorably with the performance of others who want the same promotion you do. As Charles Darwin saw clearly, much of life is graded on the curve, and conventional economic models completely ignore that fact.”

ThinkingWantLooksFactsJobsLife IsPurposeSawsImpossibleEconomicModelsPerformancesAbsenceSuitsCompareCandidatesInterviewsRelativeConventionalCurvesPromotionSuitableFrame Of ReferenceEconomic Models
Author:Robert H. Frank
Create image

“A good school is a relative concept, and the better schools are located in more expensive neighborhoods. But when everyone bids more for a house in a better school district, they succeed only in bidding up the prices of those houses. As before, 50 percent of all children will attend schools in the bottom half of the school quality distribution. As in the familiar stadium metaphor, all stand, hoping to get a better view, only to discover that no one sees better than if all had remained seated.”

IfsChildrenSchoolHouseViewsHalfQualitySucceedPercentConceptsBottomMetaphorFamiliarExpensiveNeighborhoodRelativeDistributionStadiumsBiddingGood SchoolSchool Districts
Author:Robert H. Frank
Create image

“All parents want to send their children to the best possible schools. But because a good school is a relative concept, a family cannot achieve its goal unless it outbids similar families for a house in a neighborhood served by such a school. Failure to do so often means having to send your kids to a school with metal detectors at the front entrance and students who score in the 20th percentile in reading and math. Most families will do everything possible to avoid having to send their kids to a school like that. But because of the logic of musical chairs, they're inevitably frustrated.”

WantMeanChildrenKidsSchoolReadingHouseParentGoalAchieveFrontsStudentsConceptsLogicMusicalMathScoreChairsNeighborhoodRelativeMetalsFrustratedEntrancesGood SchoolMetal Detectors
Author:Robert H. Frank
Create image