A. Michael Spence | Nobel Prize, Economics & Trade

A. Michael Spence American economist who, with George A. Akerlof and Joseph E. Stiglitz, won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001 for laying the foundations for the theory of markets with asymmetric information. Spence studied at Yale University (B.A., 1966), the University of Oxford (B.A., M.A.,

A. Michael Spence

Asa Philip Randolph

A. Philip Randolph | Biography, Organizations, & March on Washington

A. Philip Randolph was a trade unionist and civil-rights leader who was an influential figure in the struggle for justice and equality for African Americans. The son of a Methodist minister, Randolph moved to the Harlem district of New York City in 1911. He attended City College at night and, with

A. Philip Randolph, trade unionist and civil-rights leader who was an influential figure in the struggle for justice and equality for African Americans. Randolph was a director of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (1963), a massive demonstration in support of civil rights for Blacks.

A. Philip Randolph

Anton Martin Schweigaard

A.M. Schweigaard | Liberal Reformist, Prime Minister & Statesman

A.M. Schweigaard was a Norwegian jurist and economic reformer who helped bring about Norway’s change to a capitalist economy. A professor of jurisprudence and economics in the 1830s and ’40s and an extremely influential publicist for economic liberalism, Schweigaard was elected to the Storting

A.M. Schweigaard

Abba Ptachya Lerner

Abba P. Lerner | Russian Economist, Keynesian Theory, Monetary Policy

Abba P. Lerner Russian-born economist whose contributions included theoretical works on inflation, unemployment, and international trade. Lerner’s family immigrated to England when he was three. By age 16 he had begun a succession of jobs (as a machinist, commercial printer, and teacher, among

Abba P. Lerner

Abe Isoo | Labor Activist, Political Reformer, Anarchist

Abe Isoo was one of the founders of the Japanese socialist movement and titular head of the Social Mass Party (Shakai Taishūtō) from its inception in 1932 until 1940. He is also remembered for introducing the game of baseball to Japan. Abe was attracted to socialism while studying for the ministry

Abe Isoo

Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee

Abhijit Banerjee | Biography & Facts

Abhijit Banerjee Indian-born American economist who, with Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer, was awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize for Economics (the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel) for helping to develop an innovative experimental approach to alleviating global

Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, and Michael Kremer

Abhijit Banerjee, Indian-born American economist who, with Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer, was awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize for Economics (the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel) for helping to develop an innovative experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.

Abhijit Banerjee

Accredited Investor

Accredited investors are a category of high-net-worth individuals and certain financial entities that meet financial or professional criteria established by a regulatory authority, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the United States. Accredited investors have the privilege of

Accredited investors are a category of high-net-worth individuals and certain financial entities that match financial or professional criteria established by a regulatory authority, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the U.S. Accredited investors have the privilege of accessing certain asset classes and investments that are not accessible to the general public.

accredited investor

Jérôme-Adolphe Blanqui

Adolphe Blanqui | Socialist theorist, Revolutionary leader

Adolphe Blanqui was a French liberal economist whose History of Political Economy in Europe (1837–38) was the first major study of the history of economic thought. In 1833 Blanqui succeeded Jean-Baptiste Say, under whom he had studied, to the chair of political economy at the Conservatory of Arts

Adolphe Blanqui

Alan Wainwright Fisher

Alan Fisher | Biography, Trade Unionist, & Facts

Alan Fisher was a British labour leader who, as general secretary of the National Union of Public Employees (NUPE), improved pay for workers in local government, sanitation and sewage, and the National Health Service. Fisher left secondary school in 1939 to join the local office of NUPE as a junior

Alan Fisher (1922-88) was a British labour leader who, as general secretary of the National Union of Public Employees (NUPE), improved pay and conditions for workers.

Alan Fisher

Albert Schäffle | Social Theory, Critique, Reform

Albert Schäffle was an economist and sociologist who served briefly as Austrian minister of commerce and agriculture (1871); he was responsible for a major plan of imperial federalization for the Bohemian crownland. Schäffle became a professor of political economy at Tübingen (1860) and later

Albert Schäffle

Albion Woodbury Small

Albion W. Small | Founder of Sociology, University of Chicago, Social Theory

Albion W. Small was a sociologist who won recognition in the United States for sociology as an academic discipline with professional standards. In 1892 he became the first professor of sociology in the United States, at the University of Chicago, where he organized the first U.S. sociology

Albion W. Small

Aleksey Ivanovich Rykov | Soviet Revolutionary Leader, Opponent of Stalin

Aleksey Ivanovich Rykov was a Bolshevik leader who became a prominent Soviet official after the Russian Revolution (October 1917) and one of Joseph Stalin’s major opponents during the late 1920s. Rykov joined the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party at the age of 18, became a member of its

Aleksey Ivanovich Rykov

Alfred Marshall | Principle of Economics, Supply & Demand

Alfred Marshall was one of the chief founders of the school of English neoclassical economists and the first principal of University College, Bristol (1877–81). Marshall was educated at Merchant Taylors’ School and at St. John’s College, Cambridge. He was a fellow and lecturer in political economy

Alfred Marshall

Alvin Eliot Roth

Alvin E. Roth | Nobel Prize, Game Theory, Market Design

Alvin E. Roth American economist who was a pioneer of market design, a field that devises systems for matching supply with demand until a stable market has been established. With the American economist Lloyd Shapley, he was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize for Economics. Roth grew up in Queens, New

Alvin E. Roth

Alvin Harvey Hansen | Keynesian economics, fiscal policy, economic stabilization

Alvin Harvey Hansen was an American economist noted for his strong and influential advocacy of the theories of John Maynard Keynes. Hansen was educated at Yankton College (B.A., 1910) and at the University of Wisconsin (Ph.D., 1918), where he studied under economists Richard T. Ely and John R.

Alvin Harvey Hansen

Amartya Sen | Biography, Education, Books, Famine, Nobel Prize, & Facts

Amartya Sen Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory and for his interest in the problems of society’s poorest members. Sen was best known for his work on the causes of famine, which led to the

Amartya Sen, Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory and for his interest in the problems of society’s poorest members. Sen was best known for his work on the causes of famine.

Amartya Sen

American Enterprise Institute (AEI)

American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a private nonprofit American institution of research founded in 1943 by American industrialist Lewis H. Brown. One of the oldest and most-influential think tanks in the United States, it supports limited government, private enterprise, and democratic capitalism.

American Enterprise Institute

Andrew Fulton Brimmer Jr.

Andrew Brimmer | Federal Reserve, Monetary Policy, Harvard Professor

Andrew Brimmer American economist who became the first African American governor of the Federal Reserve Board (1966–74). He was a renowned expert on monetary policy, international finance, and capital markets. Brimmer was the son of sharecroppers and attended local segregated schools. Upon his

Andrew Brimmer

Andrey Sergeyevich Bubnov | Revolutionary, Politician, Bolshevik

Andrey Sergeyevich Bubnov was a Bolshevik revolutionary and Communist Party and Soviet government official who became a prominent education official. Expelled in his youth from the Moscow Agricultural Institute for revolutionary activities, Bubnov joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party

Andrey Sergeyevich Bubnov

André Morellet | Enlightenment, Philosopher, Writer

André Morellet was a French economist and miscellaneous writer, an associate of the Philosophes and a contributor to the Encyclopédie. Educated by the Jesuits in Lyon and at the Sorbonne, Morellet took holy orders, but his designation of abbé was the chief thing clerical about him. A frequenter of

André Morellet

Angus Stewart Deaton

Angus Deaton | Biography, Nobel Prize, & Facts

Angus Deaton British American economist who received the 2015 Nobel Prize for Economics. His fundamental contributions to the theory of consumption, savings, and the measurement of economic well-being transformed the field of applied and development economics. Deaton received a B.A. (1967), an M.A.

Angus Deaton, British American economist who received the 2015 Nobel Prize for Economics. His fundamental contributions to the theory of consumption, savings, and the measurement of economic well-being transformed the field of applied and development economics. Learn more about Deaton’s life and career.

Angus Deaton

Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, baron de l’Aulne | French Economist & Statesman

Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, baron de l’Aulne French economist who was an administrator under Louis XV and served as the comptroller general of finance (1774–76) under Louis XVI. His efforts at instituting financial reform were blocked by the privileged classes. Turgot was born into an old Norman

Turgot, portrait, 18th century; in the Musée de Versailles

Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, baron de l’Aulne

Antoine-Augustin Cournot | Mathematician, Philosopher, Philosophie

Antoine-Augustin Cournot was a French economist and mathematician. Cournot was the first economist who, with competent knowledge of both subjects, endeavoured to apply mathematics to the treatment of economics. His main work in economics is Recherches sur les principes mathématiques de la théorie

Antoine-Augustin Cournot

Antonio Gramsci | Marxist theorist, philosopher, linguist

Antonio Gramsci was an intellectual and politician, a founder of the Italian Communist Party whose ideas greatly influenced Italian communism. In 1911 Gramsci began a brilliant scholastic career at the University of Turin, where he came in contact with the Socialist Youth Federation and joined the

Antonio Gramsci

Arbitrage | Investment, Risk & Profit

arbitrage, business operation involving the purchase of foreign exchange, gold, financial securities, or commodities in one market and their almost simultaneous sale in another market, in order to profit from price differentials existing between the markets. Opportunities for arbitrage may keep

arbitrage

Armen Albert Alchian

Armen A. Alchian | Price Theory, Microeconomics & Game Theory

Armen A. Alchian American economist whose teachings countered some of the popular economic theories of the late 20th century, such as those regarding labour costs or the implications of property ownership. (Read Milton Friedman’s Britannica entry on money.) Alchian studied at Stanford University,

Armen A. Alchian

Arnold Toynbee | Victorian era, historian, philosopher

Arnold Toynbee English economist and social reformer noted for his public service activities on behalf of the working class. Toynbee, the son of a surgeon, graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, in 1878. He was then appointed a tutor at Balliol, where his lectures on the economic history of the

Arnold Toynbee

Arsène-Jules-Étienne-Juvénal Dupuit | Hydraulic Engineering, Water Supply, Sewerage

Arsène-Jules-Étienne-Juvénal Dupuit was a French engineer and economist who was one of the first to analyze the cost-effectiveness of public works. Dupuit studied at the École Polytechnique (Polytechnic School) in Paris and then joined the civil-engineering corps, rising to the rank of inspector

Arsène-Jules-Étienne-Juvénal Dupuit

Arthur Cecil Pigou | Welfare Economics, Marginal Utility & Laissez-Faire

Arthur Cecil Pigou was a British economist noted for his studies in welfare economics. Educated at King’s College, Cambridge, Pigou was considered one of Alfred Marshall’s best students. When Marshall retired as a professor of political economy in 1908, Pigou was named as Marshall’s replacement.

Arthur Cecil Pigou

Arthur Deakin | Trade Unionist, Labour Activist & Labour Politician

Arthur Deakin was a leader of British trade unionism in the decade after World War II. A cobbler’s son, Deakin began work at age 13 in a South Wales steel plant, becoming an active trade unionist during World War I and a full-time union official in 1919. In 1932 he was appointed national secretary

Arthur Deakin

Arthur James Cook | Trade Unionist, Labour Politician & Socialist

Arthur James Cook was a British labour leader, an impassioned orator who had a great following among British coal miners and who came, in the 1920s, to symbolize the miners’ determined but ineffective struggle against the mineowners’ insistence on lower wages and longer hours. A coal miner from age

Arthur James Cook

Arthur Melvin Okun

Arthur M. Okun | Keynesian economics, economic inequality, poverty

Arthur M. Okun American economist who served as chairman of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers (1968–69). After obtaining a B.S. (1949) and a Ph.D. (1956) in economics from Columbia University, Okun taught at Yale University (1961–69). He was, however, on leave from Yale for most of his tenure

Arthur M. Okun

Louis-Auguste Blanqui

Auguste Blanqui | French Revolutionary, Socialist Activist

Auguste Blanqui was a revolutionary socialist, a legendary martyr-figure of French radicalism, imprisoned in all for more than 33 years. His disciples, the Blanquists, played an important role in the history of the workers’ movement even after his death. Blanqui’s father was a subprefect in the

Auguste Blanqui

Barbara Mary Ward, Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth

Barbara Ward, Baroness Jackson | Socialist, Global Poverty & Development

Barbara Ward, Baroness Jackson British economist and writer. After studying economics at the University of Oxford, she became a writer and editor at The Economist (from 1939). She married Robert Jackson in 1950. She was an influential adviser to the Vatican, the UN, and the World Bank, and she

Barbara Ward, Baroness Jackson

Benjamin Shalom Bernanke

Ben Bernanke | Biography, Nobel Prize, & Facts

Ben Bernanke American economist who served as chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (“the Fed”), the central bank of the United States, from 2006 to 2014. In 2022 he and two other economists, Douglas Diamond and Philip Dybvig, were awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics

Ben Bernanke, American economist who was jointly awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize for Economics with Douglas Diamond and Philip Dybvig. Bernanke served as chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from 2006 to 2014.

Ben Bernanke

Bengt Robert Holmström

Bengt Holmstrom | Biography, Nobel Prize, & Facts

Bengt Holmström Finnish economist who, with Oliver Hart, was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize for Economics for his contributions to contract theory. Starting in the late 1970s, Holmström and various colleagues undertook pioneering research on the design of employment contracts that are optimal (from

Bengt Holmstrom, Finnish economist who won a share of the 2016 Nobel Prize for Economics.

Bengt Holmström

Big Bill Haywood, William Dudley Haywood

Bill Haywood | Industrial Unionism, Wobblies, Anarchism

Bill Haywood was an American radical who led the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, or “Wobblies”) in the early decades of the 20th century. A miner at the age of 15, Haywood became active in the Western Federation of Miners and was elected its secretary treasurer. At the founding convention of

Bill Haywood

Carl Menger | Biography & Facts

Carl Menger was an Austrian economist who contributed to the development of the marginal utility theory and to the formulation of a subjective theory of value. Menger received a Ph.D. from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków in 1867 and then accepted a position in the Austrian civil service. In

Menger, detail of a drawing by F. Schmutzer, 1910.

Carl Menger, Austrian economist who contributed to marginal utility theory and to the formulation of a subjective theory of value through his insight that goods are valuable because they serve various uses whose importance differs. He was widely known as the founder of the Austrian school of economics.

Carl Menger

Cesar Estrada Chavez

Cesar Chavez | Biography, Accomplishments, & Facts

Cesar Chavez was an organizer of migrant American farmworkers and a cofounder with Dolores Huerta of the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) in 1962. Chavez, who was a farm labourer himself, grew up in a family of Mexican American descent. After his parents lost their farm during the Great

Cesar Chavez, organizer of migrant American farmworkers and a cofounder with Dolores Huerta of the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) in 1962. In recognition of his nonviolent activism and support of working people, he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994.

Cesar Chavez

Ernesto Guevara de la Serna

Che Guevara | Biography, Facts, Books, Fidel Castro, & Death

Che Guevara was a theoretician and tactician of guerrilla warfare, a prominent communist figure in the Cuban Revolution (1956–59), and a guerrilla leader in South America. After his execution by the Bolivian army, he was regarded as a martyred hero by generations of leftists worldwide, and his

Che Guevara, the iconic Argentine-Cuban revolutionary, fought for social justice and became a symbol of rebellion against oppression in Latin America.

Che Guevara

Ch’en Po-ta

Chen Boda | Chinese Communist, Revolutionist & Propagandist

Chen Boda was a revolutionist and propagandist who became the chief interpreter of the “thought of Mao Zedong” and was briefly one of the five most powerful leaders of modern China. Later he was prosecuted for his role in the Cultural Revolution (1966–76). Born into a peasant family, Chen

Chen Boda

Ch’en Tu-hsiu, Chen Qingtong, Shi’an, Zhongfu

Chen Duxiu | Chinese Revolutionary & Educator

Chen Duxiu was a founder of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP; 1921) and a major leader in developing the cultural basis of revolution in China. He was removed from his position of leadership in 1927 and was expelled from the Communist Party in 1929. Chen was born to a wealthy family. His father,

Chen Duxiu

Francisco Alves Mendes, Jr.

Chico Mendes | Biography, Contributions, Environmentalism, & Facts

Chico Mendes Brazilian labour leader and conservationist who defended the interests of the seringueiros, or rubber tree tappers, in the Amazonian state of Acre, calling for land reform and preservation of the Amazon Rainforest. His activism won him recognition throughout Brazil and internationally

Chico Mendes

Martin Thembisile Hani

Chris Hani | Biography, Wife, History, Assassination, & Death

Chris Hani was a South African political activist who was assassinated in 1993. He was a prominent member of the African National Congress (ANC), the political party and Black nationalist organization that led the fight to eliminate South Africa’s racially discriminatory policy of apartheid, and

Chris Hani was a South African political activist who was assassinated in 1993. He was a prominent member of the African National Congress (ANC) and a leader of the South African Communist Party (SACP). He also served as chief of staff of Umkhonto we Sizwe (‘Spear of the Nation’), the military wing of the ANC.

Chris Hani

Christina Hull Paxson

Christina H. Paxson | Biography & Facts

Christina H. Paxson American economist who made substantial contributions to the fields of health economics and public policy. Paxson grew up in Forest Hills, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh. She earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Swarthmore College in 1982 and master’s and doctoral

Christina H. Paxson, American economist who made substantial contributions to the fields of health economics and public policy.

Christina H. Paxson

Christopher Antoniou Pissarides

Christopher A. Pissarides | Biography, Nobel Prize, & Facts

Christopher A. Pissarides British Cypriot economist who was a corecipient, with Peter A. Diamond and Dale T. Mortensen, of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences “for their analysis of markets with search frictions.” The theoretical framework collectively developed by the three men—which

Christopher A. Pissarides, British Cypriot economist who was a corecipient, with Peter A. Diamond and Dale T. Mortensen, of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences ‘for their analysis of markets with search frictions.’ Learn more about Pissarides’s life and career.

Christopher A. Pissarides

Christopher Albert Sims

Christopher A. Sims | Biography, Nobel Prize, & Facts

Christopher A. Sims American economist who, with Thomas J. Sargent, was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize for Economics. He and Sargent were honoured for their independent but complementary research on how changes in macroeconomic indicators such as gross domestic product (GDP), inflation, investment,

Christopher A. Sims, American economist who, with Thomas J. Sargent, was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize for Economics. He and Sargent were honored for their independent but complementary research on how changes in macroeconomic indicators such as GDP causally interact with economic ‘shocks.’

Christopher A. Sims

Claudia Goldin | Biography, Nobel Prize, & Facts

Claudia Goldin American economist and winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize for Economics (the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel) for “having advanced our understanding of women’s labour market outcomes” in the United States and other high-income countries. Goldin was

Claudia Goldin

Clifford Hugh Douglas

Clifford Douglas | Social Credit, Labour Movement, Industrialism

Clifford Douglas was a British economist and originator of the theory of Social Credit. He began a career in engineering and management, but society’s failure to utilize modern technology fully stimulated his interest in economic theories. These were expounded (1919) in The New Age, the socialist

Clifford Douglas

Clive W.J. Granger | Nobel Prize, Econometrics, Time Series

Clive W.J. Granger Welsh economist, corecipient of the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2003 for his development of techniques for analyzing time series data with common trends. He shared the award with the American economist Robert F. Engle. Granger attended the University of Nottingham (B.A., 1955;

Clive W.J. Granger

Clément Juglar | Physician, Economist, Statistician

Clément Juglar French physician and economist who made detailed studies of cycles in business and trade. Juglar qualified as a doctor in 1846. His medical training gave him an interest in population and demography, but it appears to have been the economic disturbances of 1848 that attracted him to

Clément Juglar

daimio

Daimyo | Significance, History, & Facts

daimyo, any of the largest and most powerful landholding magnates in Japan from about the 10th century until the latter half of the 19th century. The Japanese word daimyo is compounded from dai (“large”) and myō (for myōden, or “name-land,” meaning “private land”). Upon the breakdown of the system

Daimyo, any of the largest and most powerful landholding magnates in Japan from about the 10th century until the latter half of the 19th century. The term came about to refer to military lords exercising territorial control as the military class became increasingly empowered. The daimyo domains were abolished in 1871.

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