Top 42 Quotes by Eric Maskin

If I buy a car, I use the car, you don't, and the market for cars works pretty well. But there are many other sorts of goods, often very important goods, which are not provided well through the market. Often, these go under the heading of public goods.

In various countries around the world, assets that had previously been in the hands of governments were sold off to the private sector in the hope that this would lead to a more efficient allocation, that these assets would be put to better use.

What we mean by an outcome will naturally depend on the context. Thus, for a government charged with delivering public goods, an outcome will consist of the quantities provided of such goods as intercity highways, national defense and security, environmental protection, and public education together with the arrangements by which they are financed.

A contingent bailout policy - implicit or explicit - must be coupled with some regulation of what banks can and cannot do. For example, a ban on lending to uncreditworthy customers might well make sense.