Shackle on welfare economics

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"For very many years I've not believed in welfare economics as a scientific construction. My idea of welfare economics is that you choose an administrator, a man with a conscience himself, and broad sympathy, with a generous mind and then you say, quote 'Leave it to him!' I don't believe you can do any better…

"Those economist who are going to give advice, or who are going to be advisors either to government or to business, should have their training based in economic history, and they only need as much theory as you find up to the second-year textbook." (Quoted in Earl and Littleboy, p. 21)

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