“I think you've got to watch out for anybody in high school who says he wants to become an economist.” ThinkingWantSchoolWatchesHigh SchoolEconomist Author:Thomas J. Sargent
“I wasn't the brightest kid, not by a long shot. I was interested in football, in girls, in getting my work done with the least amount of effort.” LongDoneKidsGirlEffortFootballAmountShotsWork DoneLong Shots Author:Thomas J. Sargent
“Keynes was a very good economist. He was brilliant. He had wonderful insights. His work has inspired me many times.” WonderfulInspiredVery GoodInsightBrilliantEconomistKeynes Author:Thomas J. Sargent
“When I was a graduate student, estimating and interpreting distributed lags topped the agenda of macroeconomists and other applied economists.” StudentsEconomicsAgendasGraduatesEconomistInterpretingLagGraduate StudentsEstimating Author:Thomas J. Sargent
“In the 1980s, there were occasions when it made sense to say, 'it is too difficult to maximize the likelihood function, and besides if we do, it will blow our model out of the water.” IfsMadeDifficultWaterModelsFunctionBlowOccasionsLikelihood Author:Thomas J. Sargent
“The first and most optimistic response was complete rational expectations econometrics. A rational expectations equilibrium is a likelihood function. Maximize it.” FirstsExpectationsFunctionResponseRationalOptimisticEquilibriumLikelihoodEconometrics Author:Thomas J. Sargent
“There was a danger that skeptics and opponents would misread those likelihood ratio tests as rejections of an entire class of models, which of course they were not.” CoursesClassDangerModelsTestsOpponentsRejectionSkepticRatiosLikelihood Author:Thomas J. Sargent