Classic economic theories recognize public goods aspects of one kind or another - the need for economic intervention in, obviously, the supply of infrastructure and of education. We're not supplying that infrastructure at an appropriate rate today. I don't doubt it isn't just money; it's organization and goals and so forth.

One thing I learned from meteorology is that being an actual science was no guarantee of exactness.

Usefulness depends on tractability.

My undergraduate education, at the City College in New York, was made possible only by the existence of that excellent free institution and the financial sacrifices of my parents.

Knowledge is a free good. The biggest cost in its transmission is not in the production or distribution of knowledge, but in its assimilation. This is something that all teachers know.

I'm struck by the fact that by and large equity capital doesn't play a big role in new financing; it's either bonds or internal financing but not really equity. And therefore, it's not clear that anything which improves the equity markets has really much to do with the productivity of the economy as a whole.

My graduate study was interrupted, like that of many others, by World War II.