Economists

This list contains thirty-eight theorists, not all of whom are considered as being classical. In most cases, only one theory for each economist is included. There are many other economists and many other theories not listed here.

J. H. Boeke

Social duelism is the clashing of an imported social system with an indigenous social system of another style. Most frequently the imported social system is high capitalism. But it may be socialism or communism just as well, or a blending of them. One of the characteristic features of a dualistic society is limited needs, in sharp contrast with the unlimited needs of a Western society. (Higgins)

Augustin Cournot

Each firm treats the output level of a homogenous good of its competitor as fixed, and then decides how much to produce. (Pindyck)

Edward Chamberlain and Joan Robinson

They developed the theory of monopolistic competition. According to this theory, the market was similar to perfect competition in that there were many firms with freedom of entry and exit. However, each firm had some power over price because each sold a product that was differentiated significantly from those of its competitors. (Lipsey)

John Fei and Gustav Ranis

The rate of labour absorption depends partly on the rate of capital accumulation, whereasthe absorptions due to innovations alone, with fixed capital stock, depends in turnon three factors: the intensity of innovation, the degree of labor-using bias of the innovation, and the relative strength or weakness of the law of diminishing returns to labour. (Higgins)

William Fellner

If all firms behave as though they were branches of a single firm, they can achieve the ends of a monopolist by adopting price and output policies that will maximize their collective profits. (Lipsey)

Irving Fisher

His Quantity Theory of Money suggests that the demand for money is purely a function of income, and interest rates have no effect on the demand for money. (Mishkin)

John Kenneth Galbraith

He argued that public demand is being controlled by the large corporations. Thus, planning is necessary to redirect the use of resources away from serving the private interests of corporations to serving the public interest. (McKenzie)

Everett Hagen

Technological progress, at any rate above a certain minimum rate, will cause a standard-of-living effect, a check of population growth. First, by raising per capita income, it causes a fall in the death rate, and an accelerated rate of population growth. Then, because, as it continues, it holds per capita income above subsistence, the birth rate falls, as does the rate of population growth. Per capita income therefore rises further; the death rate falls further; and so on, until birth and death rates have reached their minimum levels. (Higgins)

Alvin Hansen

In the absence of appropriate monetary and fiscal policy, advanced capitalist countries are subject to chronic and increasing under-employment. (Higgins)

Albert Hirschman

Deliberate unbalancing of the economy, in accordance with a predesigned strategy, is the best way to achieve economic growth. (Higgins)

David Hume

With an increase in the supply of money, there would be no increase in output of goods at first. However, by degrees, the price rises, first of one commodity, then of another, till the whole at least reaches a just propertion with the new quantity of money which is in the country. (Tregarthen)

William Stanley Jevons

As a consumer purchases more units of a particular product in a given time period, that consumer’s extra satisfaction from each additional unit falls. (Lovewell)

John Maynard Keynes

Unemployment is, in part, a consequence of the inability or unwillingness of consumers and businesses in the aggregate to buy enough in the marketplace to keep all people who are willing to work employed. Falling wages and prices may eventually bring about full employment. (McKenzie)

Arthur Laffler

Tax rates and tax revenues have a direct relationship at low rates. An increase at lower tax rates also increases tax revenues. However, tax rates and tax revenues have an indirect relationship at high tax rates. Therefore, an increase at higher tax rates decreases tax revenues. Any rise in tax rates now has a significant dampening effect on economic activity. (Lovewell)

W. Arthur Lewis

The supply curve of unskilled labour in some less developed countries is a horizontal line. Thus, unlimited supplies of unskilled labour are available in such countries at the existing wage rate. (Mansfield)

Robert Lucas Jr.

The way expectations are formed changes when the behaviour of forecasted variables changes. (Mishkin)

Thomas Malthus

He suggested that total demand might be insufficient to purchase all the goods and services produced. That, in turn, could cause firms to reduce their output, which would reduce income and thus reduce demand still further. (Tregarthen)

He believed that the relatively fixed amount of land on our globe would not be able to supply enough food as population grew and more labourers began to farm the land. Eventually, as both the marginal and average productivity of labour fell and there were more mouths to feed, mass hunger and starvation would result. (Pindyck)

Alfred Marshall

The equilibrium price of a good is determined by the intersection of demand and supply. If supply exceeds demand, there will be a tendency for the price to fall until the excess supply is absorbed. If demand exceeds supply, there will be a tendency for price to rise until the excess is eliminated. (Goodman)

Karl Marx

The self-interest of capitalists leads them to produce results that impoverish the workers and thereby produce the ‘grave-diggers of capitalism.’ He argued that the rate of profit would fall as capital would rise. Capitalists try to find machines to replace workers. They try to raise profits by reducing labor costs. As the demand for labour falls, more and more workers become unemployed. His Labour Theory of Value states that the value of goods is derived entirely from the amount of labour embodied in them. (Fischer)

John Stuart Mill

The value of money varies inversely as its quantity, with every increase of quantity lowering the value, and every diminution raising it, in a ratio exactly equivalent. The really exhausting and repulsive labours, instead of being better paid than others, are almost invariably paid the worst of all. The hardships and the earnings, instead of being directly proportional, as in any just arrangements of society they would be, are generally in an inverse ratio to one another. (Slavin)

John Muth

Expectations will not differ from optimal forecasts using all available information. (Mishkin)

Gunnar Myrdal

The world economy is characterized, not by general tendencies toward equilibrium or adjustment to initial changes, but by circular causation, leading to vicious spirals which carry the world economy farther and farther away from an equilibrium position. (Higgins)

John Nash

The Nash Equilibrium states that each firm does the best it can, given what its competitors are doing. (Pindyck)

Ragnor Nurske

Low real income is a reflection of low productivity, which in turn is due largely to a lack of capital. The lack of capital is a result of the small capacity to save, and so the circle is complete. (Higgins)

C. Northcote Parkinson

Parkinson’s Law:Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

Corollary: Work expands to occupy the people available for its completion. (Slavin)

François Perroux

Economic development never takes place at a uniform rate throughout an economy but tends to concentrate on a limited number of nodes or focal points, from which spread effects are generated to the rest of the economy. (Higgins)

A. W. Phillips

He developed what is known as the Phillips Curve. It shows that wage inflation normally is high when unemployment is low and is low when unemployment is high. It also works, though not perfectly, in regard to price inflation to the unemployment rate. However, in other areas, there are problems with it. (Baumol)

John Rawls

Choose the income distribution which maximizes the minimum income. Societies applying this principle in order to decide on the best distribution of income will organize themselves in such a way as to boost the well-being of the worst off. (Varoufakis)

David Ricardo

He argued that, because income was generated in an amount equal to production, the demand for that production would necessarily be adequate to ensure its purchase. If households saved an increased share of their income, reducing consumption demands, the increased savings would provide for increased investment. Whatever was saved would be invested. (Tregarthen)

Walter W. Rostow

It is possible and, for certain limited purposes, it is useful to break down the story of each national economy according toa set of stages. These stagesare the traditional society, establishing the preconditions for take-off, the drive to maturity, and the age of high mass consumption. (Higgins)

Jean Baptiste Say

The supply of one good, in effect, creates its own demand. An increase in total quantity of a good produced means that people demand more of the other goods. This occurs because they are producing the good so that they can trade it for others. (McKenzie)

Joseph Schumpeter

The porportion of a given wage or profit income that will be saved will increase as the interest rate goes up.

Induced investment tends to rise as current profits rise and to fall as the interest rate goes up.

The most important part of private investment is determined by long-run factors, not directly related to recent changes in income, output, sales, and profits.

Technological progress and the rate of innovation depend upon the supply of entrepreneurs.

An excess of investment over voluntary savings, financed by credit creation, will raise gross national product, in value terms, by some multiple of the original gap.

Any development tending to squeeze profits, such as growing strength of trade unions, progressive income taxes, social welfare programs, or any other government intervention designed to limit profits or to redistribute income, is tantamount to deterioration of the social climate. (Higgins)

Adam Smith

He argued that the relative values of different goods were ultimately determined by the relative amounts of labour used in their production. (Tregarthen)

He observed that by dividing work to be done (division of labour), each worker becomes quite skilled in a particular specialty, and the productivity of the group of workers as a whole is enhanced enormously. (Baumol)

Henry Thornton

The tendeny of a very great and sudden reduction in the money supply is to create an unusual and temporary distress, and a fall of price arising from that distress. But a fall arising from a temporary distress will be attended probably with no correspondent fall in the rate of wages; for the fall of price and the distress will be understood to be temporary, and the rate of wages is not so variable as the price of goods. There is reason to fear that the unnatural and extraordinary low price arising from such a distress would create much discouragement in the making of manufactured goods. (Tregarthen)

Thorstein Verblen

Some commodities are consumed, not for their intrinsic qualities, but because they carry a snob appeal. The more expensive such a commodity becomes, the greater might be its ability to confer status on its purchaser. (Lipsey)

Max Weber

The reason for capitalistic development in the sixteenth century is that the Reformation provided the proper philosophical and ethical setting for the capitalist spirit to flourish. The impulse to acquisition is common to all times and all places, but Roman Catholicism held in check the pursuit of profit and the accumulation of wealth which characterize capitalism. (Higgin

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3. Goodman, S.F. Economics. London: Macmillan, 1998.
4. Higgins, Benjamin. Economic Development: Problems, Principles, and Policies. Rev.ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 1968.
5. Lipsey, Richard G., et al. Economics. 4th ed. New York: Harper and Row, 1982.
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8. Mansfield, Edwin. .Principles of Macroeconomics 5th ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 1986.
9. Mishkin, Frederic S. The Economics of Money, Banking, and Financial Markets. 3rd ed. New York: Harper Collins, 1992.
10. Pindyck, Robert S., and Rubinfeld, Daniel L. Microeconomics. 2nd ed. New York: Macmillan, 1992.
11. Slavin, Stephen L. Economics. 5th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1999.
12. Tregarthen, Timothy. Economics. New York: Worth Publishers, 1996.
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