Malthus was interested in everything about populations. He accumulated figures on births, deaths, age of marriage and childbearing, and economic factors contributing to longevity. His main contribution was to highlight the relationship between food supply and population. Humans do not overpopulate to the point of starvation, he contended, only because people change their behavior […]| Econlib
Economists use the term “inflation” to denote an ongoing rise in the general level of prices quoted in units of money. The magnitude of inflation—the inflation rate—is usually reported as the annualized percentage growth of some broad index of money prices. With U.S. dollar prices rising, a one-dollar bill buys less each year. Inflation thus […]| Econlib
For more than two centuries economists have steadfastly promoted free trade among nations as the best trade policy. Despite this intellectual barrage, many “practical” men and women continue to view the case for free trade skeptically, as an abstract argument made by ivory tower economists with, at most, one foot on terra firma. These practical […]| Econlib
More than any other economist, Paul Samuelson raised the level of mathematical analysis in the profession. Until the late 1930s, when Samuelson started his stunning and steady stream of articles, economics was typically understood in terms of verbal explanations and diagrammatic models. Samuelson wrote his first published article, “A Note on the Measurement of […]| Econlib
With The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith installed himself as the leading expositor of economic thought. Currents of Adam Smith run through the works published by David Ricardo and Karl Marx in the nineteenth century, and by John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman in the twentieth. Adam Smith was born in a small village […]| Econlib
When asked by mathematician Stanislaw Ulam whether he could name an idea in economics that was both universally true and not obvious, economist Paul Samuelson’s example was the principle of comparative advantage. That principle was derived by David Ricardo in his 1817 book, Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. Ricardo’s result, which still holds up […]| Econlib
Division of labor, specialization, and comparative advantage are key economic concepts related to economic growth and the origins of trade.| Econlib