When valuation confidence falls, it means that stock markets are perceived as overpriced. Robert J. Shiller Read Quote
Fifty years ago or a hundred years ago, generally, most people would buy a house the way you buy a car. When you buy a car, do you think, ‘I better buy this year rather than next year because car prices might go up?’ Robert J. Shiller Read Quote
What would be better, that people build big houses thinking that they’ll make capital gains or that they send their children to medical school and they do research on curing diseases? When you put it that way, it seems obvious. There has developed a sense of personal worth that’s tied to one’s house. Robert J. Shiller Read Quote
Housing traditionally is not viewed as a great investment. It takes maintenance; it depreciates. It goes out of style. All of those are problems. And there’s technical progress in housing. So, new ones are better. So, why was it considered an investment? That was a fad. Robert J. Shiller Read Quote
We should not be focusing on quick solutions. The really important concern for policymakers everywhere is to prevent disasters – that is, the outlier events that matter the most. Robert J. Shiller Read Quote
If we wait until income inequality is much more severe, we will have a whole class of new superrich who will probably feel entitled to their wealth and will have the means to defend their interest. That’s already gone far enough. We shouldn’t let it become more extreme. Robert J. Shiller Read Quote
When I see the Trump supporters on television explaining themselves, I don’t get a feeling of supreme confidence. They’ve created a revolution, and now maybe they’re a little scared by it. Robert J. Shiller Read Quote
As far as I can find, almost no one in the profession – not even luminaries like John Maynard Keynes, Friedrich Hayek, or Irving Fisher – made public statements anticipating the Great Depression. Robert J. Shiller Read Quote
We judge economics by what it can produce. As such, economics is rather more like engineering than physics: more practical than spiritual. Robert J. Shiller Read Quote
The problem is that once we focus on economic policy, much that is not science comes into play. Politics becomes involved, and political posturing is amply rewarded by public attention. Robert J. Shiller Read Quote