In my youth it was said that what was too silly to be said may be sung. In modern economics it may be put into mathematics.

In fact, a large part of what we think of as economic activity is designed to accomplish what high transaction costs would otherwise prevent or to reduce transaction costs so that individuals can negotiate freely and we can take advantage of that diffused knowledge of which Friedrich Hayek has told us.

Data can't speak for itself; it's up to you to give it a voice. Try to speak truthfully.

We must first note that economic factors are taken into account in a world in which ignorance, prejudice, and mental confusion, encouraged rather than dispelled by the political organization, exert a strong influence on policy making.

I can't remember one [example of regulation] that's good. Regulation of transport, regulation of agriculture - agriculture is a, zoning is z. You know, you go from a to z, they are all bad. There were so many studies, and the result was quite universal: The effects were bad.

Existing economics is a theoretical system which floats in the air and which bears little relation to what happens in the real world.

A firm, therefore, consists of the system of relationships which comes into existence when the direction of resources is dependent on an entrepreneur... As a firm gets larger, there may be decreasing returns to the entrepreneur function, that is, the costs of organising additional transactions within the firm may rise.