Thomas J. Sargent Quotes

United States, Economist
July 19, 1943

Thomas John "Tom" Sargent is an American economist, who is currently the W.R. Berkley Professor of Economics and Business at New York University. He specializes in the fields of macroeconomics, monetary economics and time series econometrics. As of 2014, he ranks fourteenth among the most cited economists in the world. He was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 2011 together with Christopher A. Sims for their "empirical research on cause and effect in the macroeconomy".

I think you've got to watch out for anybody in high school who says he wants to become an economist.

Thomas J. Sargent
What I really don't like is oversimplification.

Thomas J. Sargent
- Like
- Oversimplification

In the 1980s, there were occasions when it made sense to say, 'it is too difficult to maximize the likelihood function, and besides if we do, it will blow our model out of the water.'

Thomas J. Sargent
- Water
- Difficult
- Say
There was a danger that skeptics and opponents would misread those likelihood ratio tests as rejections of an entire class of models, which of course they were not.

Thomas J. Sargent
- Danger
- Opponents
- Ratio
Keynes was a very good economist. He was brilliant. He had wonderful insights. His work has inspired me many times.

Thomas J. Sargent
The first and most optimistic response was complete rational expectations econometrics. A rational expectations equilibrium is a likelihood function. Maximize it.

Thomas J. Sargent
Lucas attended a conference on rational expectations at the University of Minnesota in the spring of 1973. The day after the conference, I received a call from Pittsburgh.

Thomas J. Sargent
I wasn't the brightest kid, not by a long shot. I was interested in football, in girls, in getting my work done with the least amount of effort.

Thomas J. Sargent
- Football
- Kid
- Interested