The temptation to use mathematics is irresistible for economists. It appears to convey the appropriate air of scientific authority and precision to economists' musings.

At 2 per cent growth a year, an economy doubles in size in just thirty years.

We need to abandon the economist's notion of the economy as a machine, with its attendant concept of equilibrium. A more helpful way of thinking about the economy is to imagine it as a living organism.

Baseball players or cricketers do not need to be able to solve explicitly the non-linear differential equations which govern the flight of the ball. They just catch it.

Many Europeans, while admiring the strength and power of the American economy, undoubtedly feel that the system of social values which prevails in the United States, manifested in the acute problems evident in the inner cities and the level of violent crime, for example, leaves much to be desired.

Despite the high salaries involved, employing economists is a cost-effective way for banks, and stockbrokers to secure exposure in the media.

Keynes tried to show that market economies could settle in equilibrium states in which the labour market did not clear, and in which the level of unemployment was high. He believed that this was due to a particular example of market failure, developed in his concept of effective demand.