Famous Economists

Question 1

Economist strongly associated with the ideals of laissez-faire government policy.who was an advisor to Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher

Answer 1

Milton Friedman (American, 1912–2006)

Question 2

The undisputed leader of the Physiocrats, the first systematic school of economic thought, believed in the moral righteousness of laissez-faire policies and the notion that land is the ultimate source of all wealth.

Answer 2

Francois Quesnay (French, 1694–1774)

Question 3

Author of The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936)

Answer 3

John Maynard Keynes (English, 1883–1946)

Question 4

His “Road to Serfdom” (1944) is a best-selling defence of classical liberalism and a free market approach. He criticised state intervention in the economy and also criticised Keynes’ work on demand management. (He is seen as influential in the transition of Communist Eastern Europe to the free market.)

Answer 4

Fredrich Hayek (Austrian/British, 1899–1992)

Question 5

His The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) introduced phrases like “conspicuous consumption” and likened the ostentation of the rich to the Darwinian proofs of virility found in the animal kingdom.

Answer 5

Thorstein Veblen (American, 1857–1929)

Question 6

Author of Das Kapital (1867)

Answer 6

Karl Marx (German, 1818–1883)

Question 7

Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (2006) for his work in microfinance, a scheme for helping poor people to have greater access to finance at low interest rates.

Answer 7

Muhammad Yunus (Bangladeshi, 1940–Present)

Question 8

He was awarded the first Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1969, which he shared with Ragnar Frisch for having developed and applied dynamic models for the analysis of economic processes.

Answer 8

Jan Tinbergen (Dutch, 1903–1994)

Question 9

Best known for his “An Essay on the Principle of Population” (1798), predicting that the population would grow faster than the food supply. One of few economists who supported protectionism and the corn laws.

Answer 9

Thomas Malthus (English, 1766–1834)

Question 10

MIT professor who has been described as a key architect of both the 2006 Massachusetts health care reform, sometimes referred to as “Romneycare”, and the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, sometimes referred to as the “ACA” and “Obamacare”.

Answer 10

Jonathan Holmes Gruber (American, 1965–Present)

Question 11

Work by Karl Marx that included his theory of surplus value and his defense of economic materialism

Answer 11

Das Kapital (1867)

Question 12

His principal contribution to economic thought was extending the labor theory of value to its logical conclusion, his theory of surplus value.

Answer 12

Karl Marx (German, 1818–1883)

Question 13

He examined the necessity of private property in his Principles of Political Economy (1848).

Answer 13

John Stuart Mill (English, 1806–1873)

Question 14

He extended the ideas of Ricardo in Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy (1844) – for example, the relationship between profits and wages.

Answer 14

John Stuart Mill (English, 1806–1873)

Question 15

Princeton professor emeritus known for his work on international economics (including trade theory and international finance), economic geography, liquidity traps, and currency crises. He is noted for his blog on The New York Times, and his 2007 book The Conscience of a Liberal.

Answer 15

Paul Krugman (American, 1953–Present)

Question 16

Work by Adam Smith that was the foundation of the Classical school of economics

Answer 16

(An Inquiry into the nature and causes of the) Wealth of Nations

Question 17

His liberal popular writings like The Affluent Society and The New Industrial State emphasized public service and the limitations of the marketplace.

Answer 17

John Kenneth Galbraith (Canadian, 1908–2006)

Question 18

Conservative thinker famous for his advocacy of monetarism and author of A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960 (1963)

Answer 18

Milton Friedman (American, 1912–2006)

Question 19

Former Governor of the Bank of Canada (2008–2013) before becoming Governor of the Bank of England. (His term is due to expire in 2020.)

Answer 19

Mark Joseph Carney (Canadian/British/Irish, 1965–Present)

Question 20

He famously argued that the best way to deal with prolonged recessions was deficit spending.

Answer 20

John Maynard Keynes (English, 1883–1946)

Question 21

Author or Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered (1973). He advocated giving greater importance to environment and de-centralisation and challenged conceptions such as maximising national output is always good.

Answer 21

E.F. Schumacher (British, 1911–1977)

Question 22

Creator of the metaphor of the “invisible hand,” the unseen forces that move the free market economy. (Through individual self-interest and freedom of production as well as consumption, the best interest of society, as a whole, are fulfilled.)

Answer 22

Adam Smith (Scottish, 1723–1790)

Question 23

She made important contributions to post-Keynesianism arguing for greater state involvement to overcome inequality and the failings of the free market. (In 1933, she coined the term monopsony which looked at monopoly power of buyers and employers.) She also began work on development economics.

Answer 23

Joan Robinson (British, 1903–1983)

Question 24

His Principles of Economics (1890) introduced the notions of consumer surplus, quasi-rent, demand curves, and elasticity

Answer 24

Alfred Marshall (English, 1842–1924)

Question 25

Mathematician who made fundamental contributions to game theory, for which he was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics (1994)

Answer 25

John Forbes Nash, Jr. (American, 1928–2015)

Question 26

Utilitarian philosopher who raised the possibility of monetary expansion to achieve full employment. He was an early advocate of welfare economics – based on the principle of maximising utility/welfare in society.

Answer 26

Jeremy Bentham (British, 1748–1832)

Question 27

His work focuses on wealth and income inequality and he is the author of the 2013 best-selling book Capital in the Twenty-First Century.

Answer 27

Thomas Piketty (French, 1971–Present)

Question 28

Awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics (1993) for his work on welfare economics: measuring living standards, social justice and wider issues of social choice theory. He has been referred to as the ‘conscience of economics’ for his work on gender inequality and poverty.

Answer 28

Amartya Sen (Indian, 1933–Present)

Question 29

Author of An Inquiry into the nature and causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776)

Answer 29

Adam Smith (Scottish, 1723–1790)

Question 30

He is best known for “Principles of Political Economy and Taxation,” which introduced more-or-less modern notions of comparative advantage and its theoretical justification for unfettered international trade. He also put forth the so-called iron law of wages.

Answer 30

David Ricardo (English, 1772–1823)