Arthur Melvin Okun Quotes

United States, Economist
November 28, 1928 – March, 23, 1980.

Arthur Melvin "Art" Okun was an American economist. He served as the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers between 1968 and 1969. Before serving on the C.E.A., he was a professor at Yale University and, afterwards, was a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. In 1968 he was elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association.

The market, if it can be kept honest and competitive, does provide very strong incentives for work effort and productive contributions. In their absence, society would thrash about for alternative incentives-some unreliable, like altruism; some perilous like collective loyalty; some intolerable, like coercion or oppression.

Arthur Melvin Okun
- Work
- Market
- Incentives
Society can transport money from rich to poor only in a leaky bucket.

Arthur Melvin Okun
- Money
- Rich
- Poor

High tax rates are followed by attempts of ingenious men to beat them as surely as surely as snow is followed by little boys on sleds.

Arthur Melvin Okun
- Tax
- Beat
- Attempts