Founder of Modern Economics: Paul A. Samuelson

Founder of Modern Economics: Paul A. Samuelson PDF Author: Roger E. Backhouse
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190664118
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 761

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Book Description
Paul Samuelson was at the heart of a revolution in economics. He was "the foremost academic economist of the 20th century," according to the New York Times, and the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Economics. His work transformed the field of economics and helped give it the theoretical and mathematic rigor that increased its influence in business and policy making. In Founder of Modern Economics, Roger E. Backhouse explores the central importance of Samuelson's personality and social networks to understanding his intellectual development. This is the first of two volumes covering Samuelson's extended and productive life and career. This volume surveys Samuelson's early years growing up in the Midwest to his experiences at the University of Chicago and Harvard University, where leading scholars in economics and other disciplines stimulated and rewarded his curiosity. His thinking was influenced by the natural sciences and he understood that a critical, scientific approach increased insights into important social and economic questions. He realized that these questions could not be answered through rhetorical debate but required rigor. His "eureka" moment came, he said, when "a good fairy whispered to me that math was a skeleton key to solve age old problems in economics." Backhouse traces Samuelson's thinking from his early days to the publication of his groundbreaking book Foundations of Economic Analysis and Economics: An Introductory Analysis, which influenced generations of students. His work set the stage for economics to become a more cohesive and coherent discipline, based on mathematical techniques that provided surprising insights into many important topics, from business cycles to wage and unemployment rates, and from how competition influences trade to how tax rates affects tax collection. Founder of Modern Economics is a profound contribution to understanding how modern economics developed and the thinking of a revolutionary thinker.

Founder of Modern Economics: Paul A. Samuelson

Founder of Modern Economics: Paul A. Samuelson PDF Author: Roger E. Backhouse
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190664118
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 761

Get Book Here

Book Description
Paul Samuelson was at the heart of a revolution in economics. He was "the foremost academic economist of the 20th century," according to the New York Times, and the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Economics. His work transformed the field of economics and helped give it the theoretical and mathematic rigor that increased its influence in business and policy making. In Founder of Modern Economics, Roger E. Backhouse explores the central importance of Samuelson's personality and social networks to understanding his intellectual development. This is the first of two volumes covering Samuelson's extended and productive life and career. This volume surveys Samuelson's early years growing up in the Midwest to his experiences at the University of Chicago and Harvard University, where leading scholars in economics and other disciplines stimulated and rewarded his curiosity. His thinking was influenced by the natural sciences and he understood that a critical, scientific approach increased insights into important social and economic questions. He realized that these questions could not be answered through rhetorical debate but required rigor. His "eureka" moment came, he said, when "a good fairy whispered to me that math was a skeleton key to solve age old problems in economics." Backhouse traces Samuelson's thinking from his early days to the publication of his groundbreaking book Foundations of Economic Analysis and Economics: An Introductory Analysis, which influenced generations of students. His work set the stage for economics to become a more cohesive and coherent discipline, based on mathematical techniques that provided surprising insights into many important topics, from business cycles to wage and unemployment rates, and from how competition influences trade to how tax rates affects tax collection. Founder of Modern Economics is a profound contribution to understanding how modern economics developed and the thinking of a revolutionary thinker.

Adam Smith

Adam Smith PDF Author: Jesse Norman
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465093213
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 421

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Book Description
A dazzlingly original, "remarkable" account of the life and thought of legendary economist Adam Smith (Financial Times). Adam Smith (1723-1790) is now widely regarded as the greatest economist of all time. But what he really thought, and the implications of his ideas, remain fiercely contested. Was he an eloquent advocate of capitalism and individual freedom? A prime mover of "market fundamentalism"? An apologist for human selfishness? Or something else entirely? In the tradition of The Worldly Philosophers, Adam Smith dispels the myths and caricatures, and provides a far more complex portrait of the man. Offering a highly engaging account of Smith's life and times, political philosopher Jesse Norman explores his work as a whole and traces his influence over two centuries to the present day. Finally, he shows how a proper understanding of Smith can help us address the problems of modern capitalism. The Smith who emerges from this book is not only the greatest of all economists but a pioneering theorist of moral philosophy, culture, and society.

The Making of Modern Economics

The Making of Modern Economics PDF Author: Mark Skousen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131745586X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 770

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Book Description
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.

How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life

How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life PDF Author: Russ Roberts
Publisher: Portfolio
ISBN: 1591847958
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
"How the insights of an 18th century economist can help us live better in the 21st century. Adam Smith became famous for The Wealth of Nations, but the Scottish economist also cared deeply about our moral choices and behavior--the subjects of his other brilliant book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759). Now, economist Russ Roberts shows why Smith's neglected work might be the greatest self-help book you've never read. Roberts explores Smith's unique and fascinating approach to fundamental questions such as: - What is the deepest source of human satisfaction? - Why do we sometimes swing between selfishness and altruism? - What's the connection between morality and happiness? Drawing on current events, literature, history, and pop culture, Roberts offers an accessible and thought-provoking view of human behavior through the lenses of behavioral economics and philosophy"--

Adam Smith's Legacy

Adam Smith's Legacy PDF Author: Michael Fry
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134925867
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
First published in 1992. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Essential Adam Smith

The Essential Adam Smith PDF Author: Adam Smith
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393242609
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Few writings are more often cited as a cornerstone of modern economic thought than those of Adam Smith. Few are less read. The sheer strength of his great work, The Wealth of Nations, discourages many from attempting to explore its rich and lucid arguments. In this brilliantly crafted volume, one of the most eminent economists of our day provides a generous selection from the entire body of Smith's work, ranging from his fascinating psychological observations on human nature to his famous treatise on what Smith called a "society of natural liberty," The Wealth of Nations. Among the works represented in this volume in addition to The Wealth of Nations are The History of Astronomy, Lectures on Jurisprudence, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, and Smith's correspondence with David Hume. Before each of Smith's writings Robert Heilbroner presents a clear and lively discussion that will interest the scholar as much as it will clarify the work for the non-specialist. Adam Smith emerges from this collection of his writings, as he does from his portrait in Professor Heilbroner's well-known book, as the first economist to deserve the title of "worldly philosopher."

Routledge Handbook of Modern Economic History

Routledge Handbook of Modern Economic History PDF Author: Robert Whaples
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415677041
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 365

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Book Description
The aim of The Handbook of Modern Economic History will be to introduce readers to the key approaches and findings of economic historians who study the modern world. Modern economic history blends two approaches ' Cliometrics (which focuses on measuring economic variables and explicitly testing theories about the historical performance and development of the economy, as exemplified by the approach of Robert Fogel) and the New Institutional Economics (which focuses on how social, cultural, legal and organizational norms and rules shape ...

The Knowledge We Have Lost in Information

The Knowledge We Have Lost in Information PDF Author: Philip Mirowski
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190270071
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
Information is a central concept in economics, and The Knowledge We Have Lost in Information explores its treatment in modern economics. The study of information, far from offering enlightenment, resulted in all matter of confusion for economists and the public. Philip Mirowski and Edward Nik-Khah argue that the conventional wisdom suggesting "economic rationality" was the core of modern economics is incomplete. In this trenchant investigation, they demonstrate that the history of modern microeconomics is better organized as a history of the treatment of information. The book begins with a brief primer on information, and then shows how economists have responded over time to successive developments on the concept of information in the natural sciences. Mirowski and Nik-Khah detail various intellectual battles that were fought to define, analyze, and employ information in economics. As these debates developed, economists progressively moved away from pure agent conscious self-awareness as a non-negotiable desideratum of economic models toward a focus on markets and their design as information processors. This has led to a number of policies, foremost among them: auction design of resources like the electromagnetic spectrum crucial to modern communications. The Knowledge We Have Lost in Information provides insight into the interface between disputes within the economics discipline and the increasing role of information in contemporary society. Mirowski and Nik-Khah examine how this intersection contributed to the dominance of neoliberal approaches to economics, politics, and other realms.

Keynes Hayek: The Clash that Defined Modern Economics

Keynes Hayek: The Clash that Defined Modern Economics PDF Author: Nicholas Wapshott
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 039308311X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 423

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Book Description
“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.

Modern Economic Thought

Modern Economic Thought PDF Author: Sidney Weintraub
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 1512808652
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 600

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Book Description
This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.