ECON 2010 Economists

John Maynard Keynes

English economist who advocated the use of government monetary and fiscal policy to maintain full employment without inflation (1883-1946)

Adam Smith

On the Wealth of Nations, "Invisible hand"

Classical economics

The idea that free markets can regulate themselves (Smith)

Friedrich Hayek

Believed in government non-involvement in the economy, won a Nobel

Douglass North

"Institutions are the formal and informal rules that constrain human behavior," won Nobel

Public choice economics

A school of thought that incorporates politics into analysis of economics

Behavioral economics

Seeking to analyze why people deviate from rational self-interest/utility maximization

Gary Becker

All human behavior is utility maximization

Daniel Kahneman

In Princeton's Psychology department, behavioral economist. "No one ever made a decision based on numbers. They need a story." Also anti-Gary Becker: People are not that strictly rationalist, we are risk averse and are the products of our environments

Oliver Hart & Bengt Holmstrom

2016 Nobels for understanding that incentives matter in organizations, H-H solution for paying managers: don't pay a fixed portion of your firm's profits, pay relative to other firms'

Kenneth Arrow

1972 Nobel winner, perfect competition = Pareto Optimal

Alfred Pigou

English economist who proposed ideas of externalities and welfare economics (centered around non-market effects) in Economics of Welfare (1920), inspired creation of EPA

Max Otto Lorenz

Created the Lorenz curve

John Rawls

Veil of ignorance: that you should construct a society where you'd be happy in every position (you have a veil of ignorance over who you're eventually going to be), so Rawls would say equal income distribution (or equal distribution of utility at least) is the best

John Bogle

Wrote about EMH in Princeton undergrad thesis and then invented the index fund with Vanguard Index Funds

Bill Miller

Ran a mutual fund that beat the S&P 500 for 15 years but then had a horrible 2 years and folded

Terrence O'Dean

Guy that said take 10% of funds out and play with it

Henry George

Said land is unearned income and should be taxed