Prices perform three functions in organizing economic activity: first, they transmit information; second, they provide an incentive to adopt those methods of production that are least costly and thereby use available resources for the most highly valued pur poses; third, they determine who gets how much of the product-the distribution of income. These three functions are closely in terrelated.
Milton FriedmanRelated topics
activity distribution incentive income information least organizing production pur second third three useRelated quotes
I then follow up with four major aspects of economic research in the last 60 years, the period of my scholarly activity. One, econometric methodology and practice, is of such fundamental importance that it cannotgo unnoticed, although I played no role in it. With the other three, general equilibrium, dynamic processes, and uncertainty and information, I was more intimately involved.
Kenneth Arrow
He brought the first movie camera from Germany, but nobody knows what happened to it afterwards. Maybe it is lying with some antique collector. There were absolutely no film-making facilities - production or distribution - available as people believed films had no future. But, whatever he did from scratch set a precedent for the future generations of film-makers.
Dadasaheb Phalke
Sir, there are three principles, greater than all others, on which, in my opinion, all good finance should be based. The first of them is that there should always be a certainty that whatever the charge may be it can be paid. That, I believe, is of vital importance. The second is that, in times of peace and prosperity, the people of the country should reduce their Debt; and the third point is that they should reduce their Expenditure.
William Ewart Gladstone
By stating that the analysis of the laws of motion governing the capitalist mode of production necessarily includes at least some essential elements of an analysis of economic phenomena valid for the whole historical epoch encompassing economic organizations in which commodity production exists, one extends the validity of parts of Marx's Capital not only into the past but also into the future.
Ernest Mandel
Every technology goes through three stages: first a crudely simple and quite unsatisfactory gadget; second, an enormously complicated group of gadgets designed to overcome the shortcomings of the original and achieving thereby somewhat satisfactory performance through extremely complex compromise; third, a final stage of smooth simplicity and efficient performance based on correct understanding of natural laws and proper design therefrom.
Robert A. Heinlein
