Quotes from Abhijit Banerjee

Public conversations about who we are and who we want to be are key to the vitality of our democracy, and leaders can seed those conversations when they speak out their own views.

We will remember UPA 2, if at all, it seems, as that period when things went mysteriously wrong - for the bribe-taking, buck-passing, foot-dragging, and general sense of paralysis.

Investors don't like being in a world where everything is held up by and waiting for an approval from a very small number of people.

People who live inside garbage piles - that should not be happening.

We might think we are very different from Pakistan but we are not; we are the same people, with the same capacity for warmth and passion and intolerance and violence.

To insist that no one can support the interests of the aam aadmi without being one himself is like saying that no man can support women's rights.

The investment climate in Gujarat under Modi has been very supportive of business interests; but it was the same under the Congress governments that came before him.

Mass protests often get books or films banned, but very few people take to the streets to challenge the right of the State to decide what we can read or watch - it's still someone else's problem.

Climate change is something that we cannot fix alone - it is the original collective action problem - it will not work unless almost all the large economies of the world act together.

One advantage of not being in power is that we can dream of reshaping the world exactly as we please.

The AAP from the beginning made it clear that they were about changing policy and not being a symbol of purity in a corrupt world.

Policy change is nothing if it's not patient work.

Partly, identity politics is a result of economic failure.

If PM-Kisan is implemented well, it will leave some money in the hands of poor farmers.

One big mistake that we made in Delhi is that we made it a low-rise city which means that rich people have nice green colonies while the poor live in dusty areas.

We've learned a huge amount from organisations like Seva Mandir and Pratham, for example. In my personal experience, these organisations work on a very large scale with very poor people.

It is undeniable that the looming environmental crisis is partly the consequence of population growth.

You have to take it seriously that the economy is in crisis.

I have learnt an enormous amount from talking to people on the ground.

The AAP was not the first group of well-meaning outsiders in politics.

I was very lucky to be born into a very academic family. I was well-read, well-trained in mathematics. I had lots of advantages to start with.

Most economies have a fair amount of tax evasion, depending on how their data systems are.

If you want to leave move money in the hands of poor people, you cannot do it through personal income tax cuts. You have to just give them money.

You don't boost growth by cutting taxes, you do that by giving money to people.