This study offers a comprehensive introduction to the main schools of contemporary economic thought, presents the current state of each school, indicating its raison d'etre, why each school thinks as it does and the questions to which it is trying to find answers.

1. 1 Introduction This book was born out of our reaction to the way in which the usual texts cover the subject of the history of economic thought. In most of these texts, there is a tendency to emphasize the similarities and differences between all the important economists and form a repository of encyclopedic knowledge where one can study the seemingly important economic ideas. In this book, we argue that it is much more fruitful to focus on the essential ideas of each and every school of economic thought and relate them to present-day problems, than to engage into a sterile discussion of the ideas and the lives of the great economists of the past. Thus, although this book deals with the history of economic thought, it does not necessarily follow a historic (in the sense of the order of presentation) approach, but rather a logical one, that is to say it deals with the social conditions associated with the emergence of a school of economic thought, its evolution, and its contemporary in?uence. One cannot write a book on the history of economic thought without writing separate chapters on the major economists of the past, that is, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, and J. M. Keynes. Of course these economists formed schools of economic thought, that is, the classical and the Keynesian.

Seminar paper from the year 2024 in the subject Business economics - Miscellaneous, Addis Ababa University (Business and Economics), course: development theory, language: English, abstract: The classical school of economic thought began taking shape in the late 18th century, led by Scottish philosopher Adam Smith. In his groundbreaking book The Wealth of Nations published in 1776, Smith introduced several foundational concepts that came to define early classical theory. He observed the immense productive gains achieved through the division of labor in a pin factory, recognizing specialization as a primary driver of economic progress (Smith, 1776). Moreover, Smith theorized his famous metaphor of the "invisible hand”, suggesting that through unhindered individual self-interest and competition in a free market, social welfare is indirectly maximized (Smith, 1776). In the early 19th century, English political economist David Ricardo built significantly upon Smith's foundations. His 1817 work On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation proposed the influential labor theory of value. Ricardo argued that the cost of production, and therefore the true value, of a good or service is determined by the quantity of labor required to produce it (Ricardo, 1821). He also formulated the principle of comparative advantage to explain patterns of international trade. During this period, Reverend Thomas Malthus published his Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798. In it, he contended that human populations tended to grow at a faster rate than the food supply, potentially resulting in recurrent famines unless checks like disease, war, or birth control intervene (Malthus, 1798 ).

This book proposes a comparative study of the history of manuals of political economy in the most representative countries for the development of economics in the 19th and early 20th centuries demonstrating and the 'professionalisation' of economics.

This book explores the relationship between economic thought, proposals for reform of political institutions, and civil society in the period between the rise to power of Napoleon and the eve of the First World War in Italy and France – two countries with a similar cultural and political tradition and with personal mobility of the intellectual class. The first section of the book is devoted to the struggle for identity, justice, and liberty, including its economic dimensions. The relation between political and economic freedom and its effect on equity is then addressed in detail, and the third, concluding section focuses on the intellectual and political conflict between the social visions of liberalism and socialism in some of their various forms, again with consideration of the economic implications. The comparative nature of the analysis, combined with its interdisciplinary approach to the history of economic and political thought and social history, will enable the reader to understand more clearly the historical evolution of each country and the relevant contemporary political and economic issues.