If you were choosing 18 economists to highlight in a calendar, who would they be?
The American Economics Association has chosen, among others, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman, George Stigler, Friedrich von Hayek, Joseph Schumpeter, Adam Smith and Joan Robinson. (Can you identify the rest?) I haven’t yet held the Economists Calendar in my hands, but the reliable Mark Skousen has, and his verdict (via private email) is “Bravo!”
The calendar includes, according to Skousen, “an amazingly complete listing of top economists through the ages”, along with the featured 18. There’s still time to order before Christmas.
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Was Karl Marx really an economist? I don’t think any serious person uses any of his work today. Maybe he should be replaced with Shakespeare, who understood the laws of supply and demand and the dead weight loss of taxation, long before Adam Smith.
Apart from Marx, Keynes, and Robinson, there are [if I am not mistaken] at least two more economists with socialist tendencies: JS Mill and Walras. That makes me wary of the AEA.
Surely David Ricardo would make the top 18. I suspect Alfred Marshall too. Irving Fisher? Pigou? Pareto? bbbbb
Snorri, economists tend to measure based on influence and unique insights that advance and/or inspire advances in thought, rather than on ideological lines. Thus, there are few economists who would not include both Friedman and Keynes, even though they represent very different schools of thought. As such, Walras was an early innovator in general equilibrium theory. Mill was very influential too.
Top row second from the left is Thorsten Veblen and John von Neumann is fourth from the left. Malthus is resting his chin in the lecturn. Two to the left of Malthus is David Ricardo. Joan Robinson is sitting right behind Adam Smith. J.S. Mill is in the bottom left corner.
Different Phil: yesterday I was just feeling sarcastic. Sorry for not making that clear, but it would have spoiled the fun. Still, there was a hidden message: economics can make a good case for the free market, but it seems hard, on the face of it, to use economics alone to make a case against central planning.
I was hoping to see William Petty but no. Maybe Hamilton?
Looking again at the picture, I award the prize for most cheerful economist to Friedman, with Robinson and Stigler as runners-up.
The prize for gloomiest economist goes jointly to JS Mill and Hayek. Runners-up are Marx and the 2 bearded fellows in the back row.
BTW I don’t think that Lucas is in there: is that because he is still alive?