If an economist was a horse

Economics, over the years, has become more and more abstract and divorced from events in the real world. Economists, by and large, do not study the workings of the actual economic system. They theorize about it. As Ely Devons, an English economist, once said in a meeting: “If economists wanted to study the horse, they wouldn’t go around and look at horses. They’d sit in their studies and say to themselves, `What would I do if I were a horse?’”

Economist Ronald Coase, in a speech to the International Society of New Institutional Economics, September 17, 1999, Washington DC. (Citation via Wikiquote.)