Robert E. Lucas, Jr.

One of the most influential modern economic theorists, Robert Lucas is the leader of the New Classical school – the ‘modern’ version of the Chicago School. His introduction of the concept of rational expectations in the 1970s helped to decisively bury the Neo-Keynesian orthodoxy and inaugurated a new era of macroeconomics relying on the neo-classical concept

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Robert A. Mundell

Robert Mundell is a Canadian economist who graduated from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He attended MIT and was top performer in his years there. He went on to win the 1999 Nobel prize in Economics. He is affiliated with Columbia University’s Economics department. Major Works of Robert A. Mundell – International

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Robert M. Solow

Robert Solow is one of the major figures of the Neo-Keynesian Synthesis macroeconomics. Together with Paul Samuelson, he formed the core of the M.I.T. economics department which has been widely viewed as the ‘mainstream’ of the post-war period. Together, Robert Solow and Paul Samuelson have contributed to various landmark pieces of work: e.g. on von

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Colonel Robert Torrens

British army officer and owner of the influential Globe newspaper. Torrens led the Anti-Bullionists during the Bullionist Debate of the 1810s but later did a virtual 180° turn to join the side of the Currency School in the Banking-Currency School Debate of the 1840s. Robert Torrens was an independent discoverer of the Ricardo’s principle of

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Ronald H. Coase

This LSE-trained member of the Chicago School is best known for two particular contributions to economic theory. In Coase’s work on the nature of the firm (1937), he argued that firms should be conceived as entities endogenous to the economic system and whose existence is justified only in the presence of transactions costs to

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Ronald Wilson Reagan

On February 6, 1911, Ronald Wilson Reagan was born to Nelle and John Reagan in Tampico, Illinois. He attended high school in nearby Dixon and then worked his way through Eureka College. There, he studied economics and sociology, played on the football team, and acted in school plays. Upon graduation, he became a radio

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Sir Roy F. Harrod

Roy Harrod taught economics, and produced his original contributions to the subject, at Oxford between 1924 and his retirement in 1967. Elected to a Lectureship at Christ Church Oxford in 1922, he then spent a few months at Cambridge with John Maynard Keynes, with whom he remained in close touch for the rest of Keynes’

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Thomas De Quincey

Although better known as a literary figure, Thomas de Quincey was also a staunch and very eloquent supporter of the Ricardian Classical School. He records his encounter with Ricardian theory in his famous Confessions of an Opium Eater: In this state of imbecility, I had, for amusement, turned my attention to political economy. My

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Thomas Hobbes

Ideas – Knowledge is derived from sense experience and from reason: From sense experience we derive historical knowledge and prudence, and from reason we derive scientific and philosophical knowledge and wisdom. – Scientific or philosophical reason is essentially the same as that which is employed in mathematics, moving from definitions, axioms, and postulates to

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Thomas Malthus

Ideas – Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometric ratio, while subsistence increases only in arithmetic ratio. – Accordingly, there is a strong and constantly operating check on population because of the difficulty of subsistence. – The price of food will tend to increase, owing to the necessity of employing additional land of inferior

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Vilfredo Pareto

The Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto was one of the leaders of the Lausanne School and an illustrious member of the ‘second generation’ of the neo-classical revolution. Although only mildly influential during his lifetime, his “tastes-and-obstacles” approach to general equilibrium theory were resurrected during the great ‘Paretian Revival’ of the 1930s and have guided much of economics

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Walter Heller

Walter Heller served as President of the Council of Economic Advisors under the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations. The famous Kennedy Tax Cut of 1964 is attributed to Heller. Contrary to the concerns of opponents, the tax cut succeeded in causing a boom in the US economy. After his tenure as President of the Council

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Wassily Leontief

Wassily Leontief’s name has been associated with a particular type of quantitative economics: input-output analysis. Input-output was partly inspired by the Marxian and Walrasian analysis of general equilibrium via interindustry flows – which in turn were inspired by Francois Quesnay’s Tableau Economique, and was the outgrowth of the ‘multi-sectoral’ approach followed by the Kiel School.

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William J. Baumol

American economist. Developed contestable markets theory. Major works of William J. Baumol – Community Indifference, 1946, RES – A Community Indifference Map: A construction, 1949, RES – A Formalization of Mr. Harrod’s Model, 1949, EJ – The Analogy between Producer and Consumer Equilibrium Analysis, with Helen Makower, 1950, Economica – Economic Dynamics, with R. Turvey,

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Sir William Petty

When Oliver Cromwell’s British forces invaded Ireland in the 1650s, a slight problem emerged: how to partition the spoils among the victors or, more precisely, what were the spoils? The task of surveying Ireland and assessing its riches was given to a physician which had accompanied the British army, Sir William Petty. Thus, the

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Reinhold Niebuhr

Ideas – The nature of the human being is flawed in its inclination to pride and power, but it exists in freedom under the shadow of God, is endowed with moral capacity, and in individual terms, can approach the ideal of Christian love. – God acts in history but is also hidden from history

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Alfred North Whitehead

Ideas – The basic concrete entities are not enduring subsstances, but events (later: ‘ actual entities’ or ‘actual occasions’) related by their space-time relations and exemplifying their qualitative and mathematical patterns (later: ‘eternal objects’). – Time is differentiated from space by the acts of inheriting patterns from the past (later: ‘causal prehensions’). – Enduring

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Archimedes

Ideas – Convergence methods, in which a curvilinear figure is bounded inside and out by similar rectilinear figures, can approximate the area of the curved figure to any degree of accuracy: Using convergence methods, the value of pi is found to be greater than 3 10/71 and less than 3 1/7. – Objects have

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Aristotle

Ideas – Ideas do not have an independent, extra-mental subsistence, but exist in things. – The material substratum, which is the potential for the existence of finite things, must be distinguished from absolute nonbeing or privation. – The substances of things are a union of form and matter. – Body and soul are conjoined

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Arthur Schopenhauer

Ideas – The world is nothing but the product of our perception and reason and exists only through and for the perceiving subject. – Reality is in itself nothing but will (an aimless energy), and will is known only as idea (representation), the objectivity of the will. – The body is the will objectified.

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