Economists

Institutional

John Kenneth Galbraith

Born 1908, Canada. Harvard professor fifty years. Bestselling author of The Affluent Society and The

Karl Polanyi

Born 1886, Vienna. Hungarian economic anthropologist. The Great Transformation argued self-regulatin

Thorstein Veblen

Born 1857, Wisconsin, Norwegian immigrants' son. Yale philosophy doctorate. Coined conspicuous consu

Japanese Art

Tanzan Ishibashi

Born in Tokyo 1884. As editor of Toyo Keizai Shimpo for 35 years, he opposed Japanese imperialism wi

Fukuzawa Yukichi

Born 1835, Osaka. Low-ranking samurai mastering Dutch then English. Three Western voyages made him J

Takahashi Korekiyo

Born 1854, sold into virtual slavery in California. Rose to become BOJ governor, prime minister, and

political_economy

Rosa Luxemburg

Born 1871 in Russian Poland. Zurich doctorate, sharpest theorist in German Social Democracy. Proved

austrian

Ludwig von Mises

Born in Lemberg 1881, Mises systematized Austrian economics through praxeology. His socialist calcul

Friedrich Hayek

Born in Vienna in 1899, Hayek was the leading Austrian School economist and foremost defender of lib

post_keynesian

Joan Robinson

Born in 1903 in England, Joan Robinson was one of the twentieth century's most influential economist

utopian

Robert Owen

Born in 1771 in Wales, Robert Owen was a textile manufacturer, philanthropist, and social reformer w

georgist

Henry George

Born in 1839 in Philadelphia, Henry George was a political economist, journalist, and social philoso

mercantilist

William Petty

Born 1623, Romsey. Self-taught clothier son, Oxford anatomy professor. Directed Cromwell's Down Surv

sociology

Max Weber

Born 1864, Erfurt. Giant of social science. Protestant Ethic argued Calvinist asceticism birthed cap

welfare

Kenneth Arrow

Born 1921, New York. Proved no voting system satisfies all fairness conditions simultaneously. Co-pr

Amartya Sen

Born 1933, Bengal. Witnessed the 1943 famine. Created the capability approach, shifting welfare from

innovation

Joseph Schumpeter

Born in Moravia 1883, Schumpeter argued entrepreneurial innovation drives capitalism through creativ

monetarist

Milton Friedman

Born in 1912 in New York to Hungarian Jewish immigrants, Friedman rose from poverty to champion free

Irving Fisher

Born 1867, New York. Yale economist who formalized quantity theory, interest theory, and price indic

keynesian

John Maynard Keynes

Born in Cambridge in 1883, Keynes was the most influential economist of the twentieth century. The G

physiocrat

François Quesnay

Born 1694, Meaux. Court physician to Louis XV who founded physiocracy, the first systematic school o

pre_modern

Ibn Khaldun

Born 1332, Tunis. Vizier across North African dynasties. Wrote the Muqaddimah in 1377, explaining ci

protectionist

Friedrich List

Born 1789, Reutlingen. German economist and political activist who challenged classical free trade t

classical

Adam Smith

Born in Scotland in 1723, Adam Smith was a moral philosopher who founded modern economics. The Wealt

David Ricardo

Born in London in 1772 to a Jewish immigrant family, David Ricardo rose from stockbroker to the fore

Thomas Robert Malthus

Born 1766, Surrey. Clergyman-economist whose Essay on Population argued geometric population growth

neoclassical

Alfred Marshall

Born in London 1842, Marshall founded neoclassical economics. Principles of Economics (1890) unified

Léon Walras

Born 1834, France. Formulated general equilibrium as simultaneous equations. Ignored in lifetime, ca

Paul Samuelson

Born 1915 in Indiana. Transformed economics into a mathematically rigorous science. His textbook Eco

Vilfredo Pareto

Born 1848 in Paris to exiled Italian nobility. Engineer turned economist, succeeded Walras at Lausan