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
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.
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: 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:
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.
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.
Harvard University Press (1947, Enlarged ed. 1983)
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
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.
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: 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.
"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.
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
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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
This section is empty. You can help by adding to it. (July 2010)
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.
Posner, Richard A. "Economic Analysis of Law." (1973)
References
^ abSandmo, Agnar (2011). Economics evolving : a history of economic thought. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press. ISBN9780691148427.
^ abCanterbury, E. Ray (2011). A brief history of economics : artful approaches to the dismal science (2nd ed.). Singapore: World Scientific. ISBN9789814304801.
^Becker, G. (1962). "Irrational Behavior and Economic Theory", Journal of Political Economy, 70(1), 1–13. JSTOR1827018 (Accessed: June 8, 2021).
^ abAppelrouth, Scott; Edles, Laura Desfor (2007). Sociological theory in the contemporary era : text and readings. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press. p. 24. ISBN978-0-7619-2801-0.
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