The American economist Arthur Okun, whose classic work on the topic is called Equality and Efficiency: The Big Tradeoff, believed that public policies revolved around managing the tension between those two values. As recently as 2007, when New York University economist Thomas Sargent, addressing the graduating class at the University of California, Berkeley, summarized the wisdom of economics in 12 short principles, the tradeoff was among them.
普林斯顿—在经济理论中，平等与效率的权衡占据着崇高地位。美国经济学家亚瑟·奥肯（Arthur Okun）著有经典名著《平等与效率：大权衡》（Equality and Efficiency: The Big Tradeoff），他认为公共政策就是围绕管理这两种价值的冲突而生的。2007年，纽约大学经济学家托马斯·萨金特（Thomas Sargent）在为加州大学伯克利分校学生发表毕业演说时总结了12条简短的经济学原理智慧，权衡也在其中。