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List of important publications in economics

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This is a list of important publications in economics, organized by field.

Contents

Some basic reasons why a particular publication might be regarded as important:

Political economy and economics

The Wealth of Nations

Description: The book is usually considered to be the beginning of modern economics. [1] : 15  [2] : 45  It begins with a discussion of the Industrial Revolution. Later it critiques the mercantilism and a synthesis of the emerging economic thinking of his time. It is best known for the idea of the invisible hand, although this idea is only mentioned once in the book. [1] : 43, 47  Smith was critical of the "vile maxim" of the "masters of mankind", all for themselves and nothing for other people. The Butcher, the Baker, and the Brewer provide goods and services to each other out of self-interest; the unplanned result of this division of labor is a better standard of living for all three. [2] : 48 

Importance: Topic creator, Breakthrough, Influence, Introduction

Principles of Political Economy and Taxation

Description: Elaborates, clarifies and corrects previous theories, and adds important new concepts

Importance: Breakthrough, influence (esp on Marx), broadened scientific foundations of economics

Das Kapital

Description: A political-economic treatise by Karl Marx. Marx wrote this critical analysis of capitalism and of the political economy from the perspective of historical materialism, the view that history can be understood as a sequence of modes of production in which exploiting classes extract an economic surplus from exploited classes.

Importance: Breakthrough, Influence

Progress and Poverty

Description: Describes how poverty in the midst of plenty results from unequal rights to use natural resources, and declining wages in the face of increasing labor productivity results from the Law of Rent. Advocated Georgism, specifically a land value tax.

Importance: Influence, Breakthrough...

Principles of Economics (Menger)

Influence: Credited with co-founding of marginal utility analysis and the Austrian School of economics.

Principles of Economics (Marshall)

Influence: Standard text for generations of economics students.

Economics

Importance:: Influential multi-level, best-selling principles textbook that popularized neoclassical synthesis of Keynesian economics and neoclassical economics.

Microeconomics

Value and Capital

Description: See Importance.

Importance: The book built on ordinal utility and mainstreamed the now-standard distinction between the substitution effect and the income effect for an individual in demand theory in the 2-good case. It generalized analysis to the case of one good and all other goods, that is, the composite good . It aggregated individuals and businesses through demand and supply across the economy. It anticipated the aggregation problem, most acutely for the stock of capital goods. It introduced general equilibrium theory to an English-speaking audience, refined the theory, and for the first time attempted a rigorous statement of stability conditions for general equilibrium.

Macroeconomics

Among the most important list of publication in macroeconomics are:

General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

Description: In this book, Keynes put forward a theory based upon the notion of aggregate demand to explain variations in the overall level of economic activity, such as were observed in the Great Depression. The total income in a society is defined by the sum of consumption and investment; and in a state of unemployment and unused production capacity, one can only enhance employment and total income by first increasing expenditures for either consumption or investment.

Importance: Topic creator, Breakthrough, Influence

A Monetary History of the United States

Description: Friedman and Schwartz used changes in monetary aggregates to explain business cycle fluctuations in the United States economy.

Importance: Influence

Game theory

Theory of Games and Economic Behavior

Description: The book by the mathematician John von Neumann and economist Oskar Morgenstern. It contained a mathematical theory of economic and social organization, based on a theory of games of strategy.

This is now a classic work, upon which modern-day game theory is based. Game theory has since been widely used to analyze real-world phenomena from arms races to optimal policy choices of presidential candidates, from vaccination policy to major league baseball salary negotiations. It is today established, both throughout the social sciences and in a wide range of other sciences.

Importance: Topic creator, Influence

Mathematical economics

Foundations of Economic Analysis

The book showed how operationally meaningful theorems can be described with a small number of analogous methods, thus providing "a general theory of economic theories." It moved mathematics out of the appendices (as in John R. Hicks's Value and Capital) and helped change how standard economic analysis across subjects could be done with the same mathematical methods.

Importance and Influence: Accelerated change in standard methods

Econometrics

A New Framework for Testing Rationality and Measuring Aggregate Shocks Using Panel Data

  • Davies, A. and Lahiri, K.
  • Journal of Econometrics 68: 205–227, 1995.

Description:

Importance:

Cointegration and Error Correction: Representation, Estimation and Testing

  • Granger, Clive William James and Engle, R. F.
  • Econometrica, 55(2), March, pp. 251–276, 1987.

Description:

Importance:

Handbook of Econometrics

  • Griliches, Zvi and Intrigilator, M. D. (eds.)
  • Handbook of Econometrics, Five volumes (Amsterdam: North-Holland), 1984.

Description:

Importance :

Analysis of Panel Data

  • Hsiao, C.
  • Econometric Society Monograph, 1986.

Description:

Importance:

Distribution of the Estimators for Autoregressive Time Series with a Unit Root

  • Dickey, D. A. and Fuller, W. A
  • Journal of the American Statistical Association 74: 427–431, 1979.

Description: Describes the Dickey–Fuller test.

Importance:

The Standard Error of Regressions

Description: Emphasizes the difference between statistical significance and economic significance, and shows that the understanding is not clear in a review of papers from The American Economic Review.

Importance: Raised the caution against "asterisk economics" in econometrics to another level. See McCloskey critique.

Policy Evaluation: A Critique

  • Lucas, Robert E. Junior
  • in Brunner, K. and Meltzer, A. H. (eds.) The Phillips Curve and Labour Markets, Journal of Monetary Economics (Supplement), 1(xx), xx, pp. 19–46, 1976.

Description:

Importance:

Labor Economics

Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis, with Special Reference to Education

Description: Extensive study about the theoretical inclusion and empirical importance of education in production.

Importance: Classic study of how investment in an individual's education and training is similar to business investments.

Schooling, Experience, and Earnings

  • Jacob Mincer
  • Human Behavior & Social Institutions No. 2, ERIC, 1974.

Description: Empirical investigation of the labor market returns to education.

Importance: Popularizing the empirical research in that subfield. Coining the so-called "Mincer equation".

Behavioral economics

Advances in Behavioral Economics

Description:

Definitive one-volume resource on the field.

Importance: Introduction

Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases

Description:

Importance:

Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk

Description: In this article, Prospect theory, a descriptive theory of choices under uncertainty, is introduced, bringing together ideas from psychology (framing and probability weighting) and economics (expected utility).

Importance: Topic creator, Breakthrough

Irrational Behavior and Economic Theory

  • Becker, G. [4]
  • Journal of Political Economy 70: 1-13, 1962.

Description: In this paper, Becker demonstrates that neoclassical economic demand curves follow simply from the fact that compensated price changes in the goods available to consumers with fixed budget sets cause corresponding shifts in the consumption opportunity sets of those consumers and thus do not require any assumptions about the rationality of market participants to justify their use.

Importance: Potentially debunks any economic policy or market level analysis implications of the field of behavioral economics.

Experimental economics

Experimental Economics: Rethinking the Rules

  • Nicholas Bardsley, Robin Cubitt, Graham Loomes, Peter Moffatt, Chris Starmer & Robert Sugden
  • Princeton (NJ), Princeton University Press, 2005.

Description: A first structured and methodical survey of economic methods, with a focus on methodology.

Importance: Consolidation of the field, methodological issues.

Behavioral Game Theory

Description: A handbook for advanced experimental and behavioral economics students.

Importance: Introduction

The Handbook of Experimental Economics

  • Kagel, J. H. and Roth, A. E. (eds.)
  • Princeton (NJ), Princeton University Press, 1995.

Description: The most influential[ according to whom? ] experimental economics handbook.

Importance: Introduction, Influence

Finance

Portfolio Theory

  • Harry Markowitz
  • "Portfolio Selection", Journal of Finance, 7 (1), 1952, 77–91.

Description: Development of the utility framework which shows an optimum can be reached using a portfolio of investments. In effect the first real proof that you should not put all your eggs in one basket.

Importance: Precursor to most modern portfolio theory work in finance.

Capital asset pricing model

  • William F. Sharpe
  • "Capital asset prices: A theory of market equilibrium under conditions of risk", Journal of Finance, 19 (3), 1964, 425–442

Description: Development of the capital asset pricing model used to determine appropriate prices for assets.

Importance: Topic creator, Influence

The pricing of options and corporate liabilities

Description: It developed the Black–Scholes model for determining the price of options, in particular stock options. The use of the Black–Scholes formula has become pervasive in financial markets, and has been extended by numerous refinements.

Importance: Breakthrough, Influence

Socioeconomics

Ecological economics

The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (1971, Harvard University Press) by Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen.

Steady-State Economics (2nd edition, 1991, Island Press) by Herman Daly

Natural Capitalism, Paul Hawken

Small Is Beautiful, E.F. Schumacher

Consumer theory

Economics and Consumer Behavior, Deaton & Muellbauer, Cambridge.

Production theory

Industrial organization

The theory of Industrial Organisation

Description:

Importance:

Sunk costs and industry structure

  • Sutton

Description:

Importance:

Managerial economics

Development economics

Description: First modern development economics textbook

Importance: Introduction

Description: Widely used textbook.

Importance: Introduction

Description: Widely used textbook.

Importance: Introduction

Description: examines the last 30 years of development economics, viewed through the World Bank's World Development Reports.

Welfare economics

The Economics of Welfare

Description: Pigou was one of the most influential economists that dealt with Welfare economics. He developed the idea of Pigovian tax.

Importance: Topic creator, breakthrough, influence

Collective Choice and Social Welfare

  • Amartya Sen
  • Collective Choice and Social Welfare, 1970

Description: Inspired renewed interest in basic welfare issues, mentioned in Sen's Nobel citation

Importance: Influence

Health economics

Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Medical Care

Description: Explores the "specific differentia of medical care as the object of normative economics", demonstrating that the consideration of uncertainty is key to understanding markets in health care.

Importance: Generally considered a seminal work of enduring significance; key to the foundation of health economics as a field of study.

The Economics of Health and Health Care

  • Folland S., Goodman AC. and Stano M.
  • (4th edition). New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2001.

Description: The standard health economics textbook in most leading universities. It assumes some background knowledge in economics.

Importance: Introduction.

Handbook of Health Economics

  • Culyer AJ. and Newhouse JP. (Eds) Volumes 1A and 1B. Elsevier: Amsterdam, 2000.
  • Culyer AJ., McGuire TG. and Barros PP. (Eds) Volume 2. Elsevier: Amsterdam, 2011.

Description: The most comprehensive available collection of essays on contemporary health economics. Advanced readers will appreciate its mathematical rigor. Those who are seeking research or dissertation topics should find this two-volume set to be an invaluable resource.

Institutional economics

Law and economics

Posner, Richard A. "Economic Analysis of Law." (1973)

Related Research Articles

Economics is a social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.

Econometrics is an application of statistical methods to economic data in order to give empirical content to economic relationships. More precisely, it is "the quantitative analysis of actual economic phenomena based on the concurrent development of theory and observation, related by appropriate methods of inference." An introductory economics textbook describes econometrics as allowing economists "to sift through mountains of data to extract simple relationships." Jan Tinbergen is one of the two founding fathers of econometrics. The other, Ragnar Frisch, also coined the term in the sense in which it is used today.

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Joseph Alois Schumpeter was an Austrian political economist. He served briefly as Finance Minister of Austria in 1919. In 1932, he emigrated to the United States to become a professor at Harvard University, where he remained until the end of his career, and in 1939 obtained American citizenship.

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Economic history is the study of history using methodological tools from economics or with a special attention to economic phenomena. Research is conducted using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and the application of economic theory to historical situations and institutions. The field can encompass a wide variety of topics, including equality, finance, technology, labour, and business. It emphasizes historicizing the economy itself, analyzing it as a dynamic entity and attempting to provide insights into the way it is structured and conceived.

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Political economy is a branch of political science and economics studying economic systems and their governance by political systems. Widely studied phenomena within the discipline are systems such as labour markets and financial markets, as well as phenomena such as growth, distribution, inequality, and trade, and how these are shaped by institutions, laws, and government policy. Originating in the 16th century, it is the precursor to the modern discipline of economics. Political economy in its modern form is considered an interdisciplinary field, drawing on theory from both political science and modern economics.

Financial economics is the branch of economics characterized by a "concentration on monetary activities", in which "money of one type or another is likely to appear on both sides of a trade". Its concern is thus the interrelation of financial variables, such as share prices, interest rates and exchange rates, as opposed to those concerning the real economy. It has two main areas of focus: asset pricing and corporate finance; the first being the perspective of providers of capital, i.e. investors, and the second of users of capital. It thus provides the theoretical underpinning for much of finance.

Monetary economics is the branch of economics that studies the different theories of money: it provides a framework for analyzing money and considers its functions, and it considers how money can gain acceptance purely because of its convenience as a public good. The discipline has historically prefigured, and remains integrally linked to, macroeconomics. This branch also examines the effects of monetary systems, including regulation of money and associated financial institutions and international aspects.

Economic statistics is a topic in applied statistics and applied economics that concerns the collection, processing, compilation, dissemination, and analysis of economic data. It is closely related to business statistics and econometrics. It is also common to call the data themselves "economic statistics", but for this usage, "economic data" is the more common term.

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Economic methodology is the study of methods, especially the scientific method, in relation to economics, including principles underlying economic reasoning. In contemporary English, 'methodology' may reference theoretical or systematic aspects of a method. Philosophy and economics also takes up methodology at the intersection of the two subjects.

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In economics, non-convexity refers to violations of the convexity assumptions of elementary economics. Basic economics textbooks concentrate on consumers with convex preferences and convex budget sets and on producers with convex production sets; for convex models, the predicted economic behavior is well understood. When convexity assumptions are violated, then many of the good properties of competitive markets need not hold: Thus, non-convexity is associated with market failures, where supply and demand differ or where market equilibria can be inefficient. Non-convex economies are studied with nonsmooth analysis, which is a generalization of convex analysis.

Convexity is an important topic in economics. In the Arrow–Debreu model of general economic equilibrium, agents have convex budget sets and convex preferences: At equilibrium prices, the budget hyperplane supports the best attainable indifference curve. The profit function is the convex conjugate of the cost function. Convex analysis is the standard tool for analyzing textbook economics. Non‑convex phenomena in economics have been studied with nonsmooth analysis, which generalizes convex analysis.

Edward J. Nell is an American economist and a former professor at the New School for Social Research. Nell was a member of the New School faculty from 1969 to 2014. He achieved the rank of Malcolm B. Smith Professor of Economics in 1990.

Marxian economics, or the Marxian school of economics, is a heterodox school of political economic thought. Its foundations can be traced back to Karl Marx's critique of political economy. However, unlike critics of political economy, Marxian economists tend to accept the concept of the economy prima facie. Marxian economics comprises several different theories and includes multiple schools of thought, which are sometimes opposed to each other; in many cases Marxian analysis is used to complement, or to supplement, other economic approaches. Because one does not necessarily have to be politically Marxist to be economically Marxian, the two adjectives coexist in usage, rather than being synonymous: They share a semantic field, while also allowing both connotative and denotative differences.

References

  1. 1 2 Sandmo, Agnar (2011). Economics evolving : a history of economic thought. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press. ISBN   9780691148427.
  2. 1 2 Canterbury, E. Ray (2011). A brief history of economics : artful approaches to the dismal science (2nd ed.). Singapore: World Scientific. ISBN   9789814304801.
  3. ↑ McCloskey, Deirdre; Ziliak, Stephen (March 1996). "The Standard Error of Regressions" (PDF). Journal of Economic Literature. XXXIV: 97–114. 2004 follow-up study
  4. ↑ Becker, G. (1962). "Irrational Behavior and Economic Theory", Journal of Political Economy, 70(1), 1–13. JSTOR   1827018 (Accessed: June 8, 2021).
  5. 1 2 Appelrouth, Scott; Edles, Laura Desfor (2007). Sociological theory in the contemporary era : text and readings. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press. p. 24. ISBN   978-0-7619-2801-0.
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