Introduction
1. Why does the book choose to begin the study of the evolution of economic thought around the year 1500?
2. What factors were important in the transition from feudalism to capitalism? Discuss each factor.
Mercantilism
1. Discuss the main features and policies associated with mercantilism.
2. Why did the mercantilists focus on exchange as the source of wealth? What was the role of the government under mercantilism?
3. Why did mercantilists try to achieve full employment?
4. What was Thomas Mun's major contribution to mercantilist ideas?
5. Discuss the ideas and contributions of Jean Babtiste Colbert.
6. Discuss the ideas and contributions of Sir William Petty.
Physiocrats
1. Who were the Physiocrats? What policies did they advocate, and what problems did their policies address?
2. Discuss the ideas and contributions of Francois Quesnay. Explain Quesnay's Tableau Economique. Why is the table important in the history of economic thought?
3. Discuss the ideas and contributions of Anne Robert Turgot. Why was Turgot dismissed from his duties as finance minister in 1776?
Capitalist Precursors
1. Discuss the ideas and contributions of Richard Cantillon
2. Discuss the ideas and contributions of David Hume.
3. What is the price-specie flow mechanism and why is it important?
Adam Smith
1. What is the main message of Adam Smith's book The Theory of Moral Sentiments?
2. According to Adam Smith, what are the four stages of economic and social development? What are the characteristics of each stage?
3. What is the role of the state according to Adam Smith? What makes for good taxes?
4. What reasons did Adam Smith give for increases in productivity brought about by the division of labor? What is the most fundamental division of labor? How does productive labor differ from unproductive labor, and why did he make this distinction? Ultimately, what is responsible for the wealth of nations?
5. Why does Adam Smith believe in free international trade? Are tariffs ever acceptable?
6. According to Adam Smith, what is the difference between the market price and the natural price? Why is this distinction important?
7. Why did Adam Smith adopt an "adding up" theory of value for economies that had advanced past the primitive stage?
8. According to Smith, why do wages differ across occupations? What was he trying to explain by making this distinction?
9. What is the wages fund doctrine?
10. What did Smith think would happen to the rate of profit over time? What reasons did he give for his conclusion?
Robert Malthus
1. Explain Malthus' population theory. What policy implications did Malthus draw from this analysis?
2. Explain Malthus's theory of gluts. What policy conclusions did he draw from the analysis?
David Ricardo
1. Explain Ricardo's theory of rent and the law of diminishing returns. What policy conclusions did he draw from this analysis?
2. Explain Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage.
3. Why did Ricardo focus on distribution rather than production?
4. Explain Ricardo's theory of distribution. Also explain why Ricardo believed that rent and profit are inversely related, and that that profit and wages are inversely related. That is, explain and show graphically that, as population grows and the demand for corn rises, rents and wages go up, while profit falls.
5. Why does Ricardo believe the economy will end up in a stationary (no growth) long-run steady state?
Jeremy Bentham
1. How does hedonism differ from utilitarianism?
2. How did Bentham's utilitarianism lead him to egalitarian reform proposals? Why didn't he advocate complete equality of income?
J.B. Say
1. According to J.B. Say, what was the fourth factor of production? How did the addition of this fourth factor of production this remove potential sources of class conflict from classical theory?
2. What is Say's law? What are the implications of Say's law?
Nassau William Senior
1. Discuss Nassau William Senior's beliefs concerning positive and normative economics.
2. Discuss Nassau William Senior's views on the poor laws. What policies did he help to enact as a member of the Poor Law Inquiry Commission?
John Stuart Mill
1. How do Mill's views on utility differ from Bentham's?
2. According to Mill, what are the three types of goods? Which is the most common?
3. What are Mill's views on government intervention?
Karl Marx
1. Define and explain the following modes of production: Capitalism, State Capitalism, State Socialism, Utopian Socialism, Anarchism, Marxian Socialism (including the six stages of production), and Syndicalism.
2. According to Marx, in the transition from slavery to feudalism to capitalism, how does each new system fool workers into working harder even though, in the end, they are no better off (i.e. still at subsistence)?
3. What were Marx's views on the writings of Smith, Ricardo, Mill, Bentham, Say, and Senior? Why was he critical of much of what they wrote?
4. Explain Marx's theory of exploitation.
5. What are the reasons, according to Marx, for the falling rate of profit over time, capital accumulation, and crises? What are the consequences of the falling rate of profit, capital accumulation, and crises?
William Stanley Jevons and Carl Menger
1. What was Jevons' main contribution to the theory of exchange?
2. Explain Jevons' determination of the length of the working day.
3. What is the water-diamond paradox? How does Jevons solve it?
4. Discuss and illustrate (using a table) Menger's ideas on total and marginal utility.
5. Compare and contrast Menger's and Jevon's views on total and marginal utility.
6. What are Menger's views on factor price determination? How can they be used to refute the labor theory of value?
John Bates Clark
1. Explain Clark's marginal productivity theory and how it was used to counter Marx's claim that labor is exploited under capitalism.
2. Discuss the ethical implications of marginal productivity theory.
Francis Ysidro Edgeworth
1. What was Edgeworth's main contribution to utility theory? Explain.
2. Explain the contributions made by Edgeworth to production theory.
Alfred Marshall
1. Explain why Marshall felt that economics is the most precise of all the social sciences.
2. Explain Marshall's views on consumer and producer surplus.
3. According to Marshall, what determines prices, supply or demand? Does the time period matter?
4. What factors, according to Marshall, cause firms to become more efficient as they grow? What determines whether they are increasing or decreasing cost industries? Why don't decreasing cost industries eventually become monopolized?
5. Explain why Marshall believed that taxing increasing cost industries and using the proceeds to subsidize decreasing cost industries is a desirable thing to do.
6. Why do modern supply and demand diagrams have the independent variable on vertical axis rather than, as is more usual, the dependent variable?
Leon Walras
1. How does general equilibrium analysis differ from partial equilibrium analysis? What does Walras' general equilibrium analysis have to say about the determination of input and output prices, i.e. the debate over whether input prices cause output prices or vice-versa?
John Gustav Knut Wicksell
1. According to Wicksell, how does inflation or deflation come about? Can can inflation/deflation be controlled, i.e. can prices be stabilized? If so, how?
2. What is forced saving?
Irving Fisher
1. According to Irving Fisher, how is the interest rate determined? What competing forces are in balance when the interest rate is at its equilibrium value?
2. What is the Fisher equation? What is the Fisher hypothesis?
3. Explain Fisher's theory of debt deflation.
John Maynard Keynes
1. What economic conditions set the stage for the emergence of Keynesian economics? Prior to Keynesian economics, what was the prevailing view regarding government intervention to cure recessions? What was the basis for this view? What is the Keynesian view on government intervention?
2. How is income determined in the Keynesian model? What are the key forces that cause fluctuations in economic activity, i.e. what role do the MPC, MEC, and interest rates interact to produce economic fluctuations? Where do expectations (animal spirits) fit into this explanation? What role can government play in stabilizing the economy?
Comments