The Genesis of Macroeconomics: New Ideas from Sir William Petty to Henry Thornton

Front Cover
OUP Oxford, 2009 - Business & Economics - 234 pages
This is a book about the discovery of macroeconomic ideas and concepts long before the term macroeconomics had been coined. The cast of authors varies from doctors and physicians (Sir William Petty and François Quesnay), to philosophers (David Hume and Adam Smith), to bankers (Richard Cantillon and Henry Thornton) to Prime Ministers of France (John Law and Anne Robert Jacques Turgot). These authors had very rich and varied careers and the book invites readers to imagine specific moments in their careers that influenced both their lives and their writings. Building on these events the contributions of each author are outlined and discussed. Examination of their writings show that by the start of the nineteenth century they had left a rich legacy of macroeconomics ranging from the analysis and measurement of national income, the depiction of the circular flow of income, the debate on the role of money in the economy, the way to model the economy, the importance of labour, land and capital, the role of entrepreneurship, the Central Bank as a lender of last resort, and much more.
 

Contents

The Genesis of Macroeconomics
1
2 National Income Accounting
21
3 A New Monetary System
43
4 Macroeconomic Modelling
73
5 The Classical Theory of Money
95
6 The Circular Flow of Income
119
7 The Importance of Capital
133
8 Land Labour Capital and Social Cement
155
9 The Lender of Last Resort
189
New Ideas from Fascinating People
215
Index
227
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About the author (2009)

Antoin E. Murphy is an associate professor of economics and fellow of Trinity College Dublin. His previous works include Richard Cantillon: Entrepreneur and Economist (OUP, 1986) and John Law: Economic Theorist and Policy-maker (OUP, 1997). He is a joint managing editor of The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought. In 2001, the European Society of the History of Economic Thought awarded him the Jerôme Blanqui prize for the best published work on the history of economic thought resulting from his editing of Du Tot Histoire du Systême de John Law (1716-1720) published by I.N.E.D./P.U.F., Paris 2000.

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