I grew up in a family in which political issues we...

My teachers helped guide and motivate me but the responsibility of learning was left with me, an approach to learning which was later reinforced by my experiences at Amherst.

Macroeconomic policy can never be devoid of politics: it involves fundamental trade-offs and affects different groups differently.

Economists often like startling theorems, results which seem to run counter to conventional wisdom.

As you age naturally, your family shows more and more on your face. If you deny that, you deny your heritage.

I was born in ancient times, at the end of the world, in a patriarchal Catholic and conservative family. No wonder that by age five I was a raging feminist - although the term had not reached Chile yet, so nobody knew what the heck was wrong with me.

My inspiration was my mom. She's a great cook, and she still cooks, and we still banter back and forth about cooking. Growing up in a mostly Portuguese community, food was important and the family table was extremely important. At a very young age I understood that.

In every age there has been a stream of popular opinion that has carried all before it, and given a family character, as it were, to the century.