ECONOMICS is a social science concerned with the intervention and taxation in the free

production, distribution and consumption of goods markets, and the idea that an "invisible
and services. It studies how individuals, businesses, hand" guides supply and demand are
governments and nations make choices on among the key ideas Smith's writing is
allocating resources to satisfy their wants and responsible for promoting.
needs, and tries to determine how these groups 2. Karl Marx - He was of the belief that humans
should organize and coordinate efforts to achieve were not motivated by grand ideas, but by
maximum output. material concerns related to survival. Marx
looked at capitalism negatively and in his book
ELEMENTS OF ECONOMICS Das Kapital argued that the capitalist's profits
come from exploiting labor. He predicted the
1) Incentives Matter.
end of capitalism and emergence of
2) There is no such thing as a free lunch.
communism, where people would own the
(Milton Friedman)
means of production, and thus, there would be
3) Decisions are made at the margin.
no need to exploit labor for profit.
4) Trade promotes economic progress.
3. Jean-Baptiste Say - best known for the Say's
5) Transaction costs are an obstacle to
Law, which suggests that supply creates its own
trade.
demand. Despite its name, the Say's Law was
6) Prices bring the choices of buyers and
not a product of his brain. He only popularized
sellers into balance.
it in his work, the Treatise on Political
7) Profits direct businesses toward activities
Economy. Say was in favor of competition, free
that increase wealth.
trade, and lifting restraints on business.
8) People earn income by helping others
4. John Maynard Keynes - best known for
9) Production of goods and services people
spearheading the revolution in economic
value, not just jobs, provides the source of
thinking, which overturned the then existent
high living standards.
ideas of neoclassical economics. Keynes is also
10) Economic progress comes primarily
regarded by many as the founder of modern
through trade, investment, better ways of
theoretical macroeconomics.
doing things, and sound economic
5. Thomas Robert Malthus - best known for his
institutions.
popularization of the economic theory of rent.
11) The invisible hand of market prices
He was one of those economists who played a
directs buyers and sellers toward activities
crucial role in the development of classical
that promote general welfare.
economics as the first modern school of
12) Too often long-term consequences, or
economic thought. Malthus was one of the
the secondary effects, of an action are
most influential and controversial figures in the
ignored.
field of economics and politics. His major
contribution to this field came in the form of
WELL KNOWN ECONOMISTS the Malthusian growth model.
6. Milton Friedman - An ardent advocate of
1. Adam Smith - Father of Modern Economics.
laissez-faire capitalism, Friedman was awarded
Best known for his book The Wealth of Nations,
the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in
in which Smith argued for free trade, market
1976. He was best known for his
competition and the morality of private
demonstration of the complexity of
enterprise. Laissez-faire philosophies, such
stabilization policy, which was introduced to
as minimizing the role of government
stabilize the economy. Some of his prominent
 contributions to this field include the concept
of monetarism, price theory, permanent
income hypothesis, floating exchange rates,
applied macroeconomics, and the Friedman
test.
7. Jan Tinbergen - Tinbergen is considered a
pioneer in the field of econometrics, the
application of macroeconomic models to
economic policy making, this remains the
method by which economic research is applied
today.
8. David Ricardo - was a British political
economist, who together with James Mill,
founded classical economics. It was Adam
Smith's The Wealth of Nations that inspired
Ricardo to take interest in this subject. He was
a believer of monetarism, which was evident
from his argument that the propensity of the
Bank of England to issue excess banknotes was
responsible for the prevailing inflation in the
country. His biggest contribution to the field of
economics was his theory of comparative
advantage.
9. Irving Fisher - best known for economic
concepts such as the Fisher equation and Fisher
separation theorem. It was his work on
quantity theory of money that became the
basis for the development of Milton Friedman's
concept of 'monetarism'. Besides the Fisher
equation and Fisher separation theorem, he is
also known for contributions such as the
equation of exchange, price index, Philips
curve, and monetary illusion.
10. Joan Robinson - She started off as a supporter
of neoclassical economics, but eventually
shifted
to post-Keynesian economics. Robinson was
best known for her knowledge about monetary
economics and contributions to economic
theory. Her major contributions to post-
Keynesian economics came in the form of the
Cambridge growth theory and Amoroso-
Robinson relation.