CV.

"Is finance good? Is it helpful to people? You know, a huge issue in the history of humankind is inequality. And that people get upset when it seems like other people have an unfair advantage over us. But inequality is something that you'd think finance works against. Modern finance is about risk management. So, you can get rid of the purely random elements in people's lives, that should make people more equal. It should be a good thing. That is the way I view it.

But the other side of finance is that it also creates opportunity, and opportunity is very important also. We can all be equal and living in poverty, and we don't particularly like that. So, that's why financial inventions eventually inspire and get people excited. I always remember Deng Xiaoping's famous statement in the late 1970's, when China was adopting modern financial methods. And some people were getting rich, and someone asked Deng, isn't this inconsistent with our ideology? And he said, well, and I'm quoting approximately, “we're all going to get rich, but somebody has to get rich first.” And that's the way it is. Financial markets do manage risk. But they also create opportunities and that can actually increase inequality. So, you have to consider both sides of it."

© Robert J. Shiller
Yale Lectures on Financial Markets (2011)
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