Finance and the Good Society Quotes

“In the end, for all of us who strive to achieve, whether in business or in other walks of life, the end of life is a disappointment. The personal pleasure over a lifetime was mostly in the striving and in one’s friendships and interactions. The pinnacle of achievement does not bring happiness, but at best the reflection that the striving achieved some benefit for others, unappreciative and unrelated though those others may”
― Robert J. Shiller, Finance and the Good Society

“Consider finding a mate, someone to live with in a close relationship, usually as husband and wife. It is indeed a sort of market problem, in that the issue is not just finding a satisfactory person but also finding someone, confronted with the same search problem, who is willing to consider you as his or her best choice. Finding a match between husband and wife is like finding a trade in a financial market. It entails learning a market price (in the marriage market it is one’s attractiveness to certain kinds of potential spouses) and finding the best deal at that price. This analogy is not meant to put a commercial slant on a very personal problem, but instead to start us thinking about how we can design a better solution to the problem.”
― Robert J. Shiller, Finance and the Good Society

“The key to achieving our goals and enhancing human values is to maintain and continually improve a democratic financial system that takes account of the diversity of human motives and drives. We need a system that allows people to make complex and incentivizing deals to further their goals, and one that allows an outlet for our aggressions and lust for power. It must be a system that redirects the inevitable human conflicts into a manageable arena, an arena that is both peaceful and constructive.”
― Robert J. Shiller, Finance and the Good Society

“finance remains an essential social institution, necessary for managing the risks that enable society to transform creative impulses into vital products and services, from improved surgical protocols to advanced manufacturing technologies to sophisticated scientific research enterprises to entire public welfare systems.”
― Robert J. Shiller, Finance and the Good Society