Development of economic thought

Development of economic thought

Adam Smith, generally regarded as the Father of Economics, author of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, commonly known as The Wealth of Nations.

Main article: History of economic thought

The term economics was coined around 1870 and popularized by influential "neoclassical" economists such as Alfred Marshall (Welfare definition), as a substitute for the earlier term political economy, which referred to "the economy of polities" – competing states.^{[citation needed]} The term political economy was used through the 18th and 19th centuries, with Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Thomas Malthus as its main thinkers and which today is frequently referred to as the "classical" economic theory. Both "economy" and "economics" are derived from the Greek oikos- for "house" or "settlement", and nomos for "laws" or "norms".

Economic thought may be roughly divided into three phases: premodern (Greek, Roman, Arab), early modern (mercantilist, physiocrats) and modern (since Adam Smith in the late 18th century). Systematic economic theory has been developed mainly since the birth of the modern era. Joseph Schumpeter specifically credits the development of the scientific study of economics to the Late Scholastics, particularly those of 15th and 16th century Spain (see his History of Economic Analysis).

There have been different and competing schools of economic thought pertaining to capitalism from the late 18th Century to the present day. Important schools of thought include Mercantilism, Kameralism, physiocracy, classical economics, Manchester school, Austrian school, Marxian economics, and Chicago school.

Within macroeconomics there is, in general order of their appearance in the literature; classical economics, Keynesian economics, neo-classical synthesis, post-Keynesian economics, monetarism, new classical economics, and supply-side economics. New alternative developments include evolutionary economics, dependency theory, and world systems theory.