Macroeconomics For Dummies®, uk edition Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Part VI
The Part of Tens

You don’t have to do a lot of mathematics in microeconomics, but the field does have some equations that explain certain concepts. Check out ten of the most important equations in the free article at

www.dummies.com/extras/macroeconomicsuk.

In this part …


Meet ten influential macroeconomists who have made contributions that make macroeconomics what it is today.

See which of the many macroeconomic concepts are the ten most important.

Chapter 17


Getting to Know Ten Great


Macroeconomists


In This Chapter


Meeting ten influential macroeconomists Understanding their contributions

Like any academic discipline, macroeconomics relies on the incremental progress of researchers, each building upon and improving previous work – like bricks building a wall or, more tastily, adding toppings to a pizza!

Here are ten famous economists who had a huge impact on macroeconomics. Ladies and gentlemen, it gives us great pleasure to introduce…

Adam Smith (1723–1790)

Here he is … the big daddy, not just of macroeconomics but economics as a whole. Adam Smith was the first person to think seriously about modern economic problems.

Smith wrote his most influential work in 1776: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. He argued that people acting in their own self-interest may serve the common good better than if they try to ‘do good’ intentionally. Smith writes:

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.

This idea was – and still is – extremely radical. Smith thought that

individuals and firms acting according to their own interests can lead to a socially desirable allocation of goods and services, as though people were being guided by an invisible hand to do what was right for them and for society simultaneously!