Paul Klemperer Quote

Too many economists excuse their practical failure by saying "the politicians (or bureaucrats) didn't do exactly what I recommended." Just as medical practitioners must allow for the fact that their patients may not take all the pills they prescribe, or follow all the advice they are given, so economics practitioners need to foresee political and administrative pressures and make their plans robust to changes that politicians, bureaucrats, and lobbyists are likely to impose.

Paul Klemperer

Too many economists excuse their practical failure by saying "the politicians (or bureaucrats) didn't do exactly what I recommended." Just as medical practitioners must allow for the fact that their patients may not take all the pills they prescribe, or follow all the advice they are given, so economics practitioners need to foresee political and administrative pressures and make their plans robust to changes that politicians, bureaucrats, and lobbyists are likely to impose.

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About Paul Klemperer

Paul David Klemperer FBA (born 15 August 1956) is an economist and the Edgeworth Professor of Economics at the Department of Economics, Oxford University. He is a member of the Klemperer family. He works on industrial economics, competition policy, auction theory, and climate change economics and policy.
Having lived his early life in the Midlands where he attended the independent King Edward's School, Birmingham, Klemperer went on to gain an engineering degree from Cambridge University, and an MBA and an economics PhD from Stanford University. He was elected John Thomson Fellow and tutor of St Catherine's College, Oxford in 1984, and a professorial fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford in 1995, when he became Edgeworth Professor of Economics in succession to Nobel Prize winner James Mirrlees.
He was a member of the UK Competition Commission from 2001–5. He was elected a fellow of the Econometric Society in 1994, a fellow of the British Academy in 1999, and a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005. He is also a fellow of the European Economic Association.