This reader in the history of economic thought challenges the assumption that today’s prevailing economic theories are always the most appropriate ones. As Leland Yeager has pointed out, unlike the scientists of the natural sciences, economists provide their ideas largely to politicians and political appointees who have rather different incentives that might prevent them from choosing the best economic theory. In this book, the life and work of each of the founders of economics is examined by the best available expert on that founding figure. These contributors present rather novel and certainly not mainstream interpretations of the founders of modern economics. The primary theme concerns the development of economic thought as this emerged in the various continental traditions including the Islamic tradition. These continental traditions differed substantially, both substantively and methodologically, from the Anglo-Saxon orientation that has been dominant in the last century for example in the study of public finance or the very construct of the state itself. This books maps the various channels of continental economics, particularly from the late-18th through the early-20th centuries, explaining and demonstrating the underlying unity amid the surface diversity. In particular, the book emphasizes the writings of John Stuart Mill, his predecessor David Ricardo and his follower Jeremy Bentham; the theory of Marginalism by von Thünen, Cournot, and Gossen; the legacy of Karl Marx; the innovations in developmental economics by Friedrich List; the economic and monetary contributions and “struggle of escape” by John Maynard Keynes; the formidable theory in public finance and economics by Joseph Schumpeter; a reinterpretation of Alfred Marshall; Léon Walras, Heinrich von Stackelberg, Knut Wicksell, Werner Sombart, and Friedrich August von Hayek are each dealt with in their own right.

Leading figures in modern economic theory, from the US, the UK, and Japan, offer insights into their careers and their research to date, and consider future directions of economics as a discipline. They reflect on their development, problems and issues that have interested them, and individuals who influenced and guided them. The editor is professor of economics at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Here is a bold history of economics - the dramatic story of how the great economic thinkers built today's rigorous social science. Noted financial writer and economist Mark Skousen has revised and updated this popular work to provide more material on Adam Smith and Karl Marx, and expanded coverage of Joseph Stiglitz, 'imperfect' markets, and behavioral economics.This comprehensive, yet accessible introduction to the major economic philosophers of the past 225 years begins with Adam Smith and continues through the present day. The text examines the contributions made by each individual to our understanding of the role of the economist, the science of economics, and economic theory. To make the work more engaging, boxes in each chapter highlight little-known - and often amusing - facts about the economists' personal lives that affected their work.

A significant part of economics as we know it today is the outcome of battles that took place in the post-war years between Keynesians and monetarists. In the US, the focus of these battles was often between the neo-Keynesians at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Chicago monetarists. The undisputed leader of the MIT Keynesians was Paul A. Samuelson, one of the most influential economists of the 20th century and arguably of all time. Samuelson’s output covered a vast number of subjects within economics, the quality of theseoften pioneering contributions unmatched in the modern era. The volume focuses both on how Samuelson’s work has been developed by others and on how that work fits into subsequent developments in the various fields of speciality within which Samuelson operated.

“I defy anybody—Keynesian, Hayekian, or uncommitted—to read [Wapshott’s] work and not learn something new.”—John Cassidy, The New Yorker As the stock market crash of 1929 plunged the world into turmoil, two men emerged with competing claims on how to restore balance to economies gone awry. John Maynard Keynes, the mercurial Cambridge economist, believed that government had a duty to spend when others would not. He met his opposite in a little-known Austrian economics professor, Freidrich Hayek, who considered attempts to intervene both pointless and potentially dangerous. The battle lines thus drawn, Keynesian economics would dominate for decades and coincide with an era of unprecedented prosperity, but conservative economists and political leaders would eventually embrace and execute Hayek's contrary vision. From their first face-to-face encounter to the heated arguments between their ardent disciples, Nicholas Wapshott here unearths the contemporary relevance of Keynes and Hayek, as present-day arguments over the virtues of the free market and government intervention rage with the same ferocity as they did in the 1930s.

In its 20th edition, this trusted definitive text is a comprehensive treatise on modern economics. It discusses in detail microeconomics, macroeconomics, monetary theory and policy, international economics, public finance and fiscal policy and above all economics of growth and development. The book has been exhaustively revised to provide students an in-depth understanding of the fundamental concepts and is streamlined to focus on current topics and developments in the field.

This book examines William Stanley Jevons's role in revolutionizing nineteenth-century economics.