There is a big divergence between views on a variety of policy issues from fiscal stimulus to financial regulation. It's my hope and my ambition for the economics profession that as we advance our knowledge, that those discussions will narrow in their focus, and that it will help to have more prudent policy-making down the road.

A lot of my colleagues have been people with broad interests in economics, not just narrowly focused interests.

I work on the boundary between economics and statistics in this field called econometrics. Part of my interest is understanding how you use statistics in productive ways to analyze dynamic economic models.

If you simply announce that things are irrational, then that alone doesn't get you very far. You have to replace rational agents with some concrete notion of what it means to be irrational.

For years, I have been working on crossing the Grand Canyon. Actually, there is nobody who says 'no,' but since this is a project that comes from me and not a commission, I have to find the money, plan the logistics, etcetera.

Rather than improving the wealth of their own nation, the Mexican government encourages its poor to come to the U.S. and send money home.

Sudden success in golf is like the sudden acquisition of wealth. It is apt to unsettle and deteriorate the character.

That is where the power, opportunity, and choice come from-when you have money. Money equals opportunity. There is no question.