For people who are economists or economics students: WHO ARE SOME OF YOUR

[lams712]

FAVORITE ECONOMISTS???????????????


I'm just curious in seeing who in the great canon of economics has influence here at DU.

[MajorFlaw]

1. Benjamin Graham

[David Dunham]

2. John Kenneth Galbraith

[RainDog]

3. who here is familiar with Karl Popper

and what do you think of his work?

...since lams712 started this thread, thought I'd ask a question too.

[lams712]

4. No, I'm not familiar w/ Karl Popper....

...do you recommend any books by him????




Some of my favorite economists include John Kenneth Galbraith, Paul Sweezy, Robert Reich, and Robert Kuttner. There are others including Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, and Thorstien Veblen.

[RainDog]

6. go here

for a basic introduction

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/

He's considered a philosopher, but his impact goes across disciplines.

[lams712]

9. I just found out that ...

...the one of my favorite economists, Paul M. Sweezy died last Friday at the age of 93.

He was a well respected American neo-Marxist economist. He was not dogmatic in his approach and he roundly criticized the USSR throughout the years. Though considerd a Marxist, in 1999 he won the Veblen-Commons Award given by the Association for Evolution Economics, a non-radical, but liberal institutional economics organization.

He is probably best known for his book, a collaboration with Paul Baran, entitled "Monopoly Capital--An Essay on the American Economic and Social Order" published in 1966.

As Business Week magazine one said of Sweezy (& Baran, who died in 1964): "...a brand of socialism that is thorough-going, tough-minded, drastic enough to provide the sharp break with the past that many left-wingers in the underdeveloped countries see as essential. At the same time they maintain a sturdy independence of both Moscow and Peking that appeals to neutralists. And their skill in manipulating the abtruse concepts of modern econmics impresses would-be intellectuals.....Their analysis of the troubles of capitalism is just plausible enough to be disturbing."


Paul Sweezy was an intellectual giant who will be sorely missed.

[Orrin_73]

7. He is one of the greatest scientists

of the 20th century. Im more familiar with his demarcation theory.

kucinich.us

sharpton2004.org

Tom DeLay:"I challenge anyone to live on my salary" <$158,000 a year>

[54anickel]

5. I am neither and economist nor a formal student of economics. But

I find the topic intriguing. I had economics back in college, found it boring. In hindsight, it was because of the few theories they taught. Now that I am into on a self-study, enrichment basis, I find it facinating and not at all boring.

That said, I am currently reading up on Nikolai Dmyitriyevich Kondratieff, Joseph Alois Schumpeter and Thomas Robert Malthus.

I don't have a favorite, although I thoroughly enjoy reading Paul Krugman.

[papau]

13. Schumpeter-Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy-1942 is a great

work - but do not buy Ayn Rand's interpretation of it - He does NOT say that central planning is justified because there were no more innovations to be made in 1942 - so all that remained was deciding on the most rational method for organizing each industry without all the waste of competition, marketing, and of course profit.

What he does say is that innovation has become organized corporate R&D - and that solialism in this would will produce innovation, indeed will perhaps produce as much innovation as Capitalism with its reliance on the entrepreneur.

Again the key - innovation - does not go away - it is just a question - do we really need cut-throat capitalism to get innovation?

[54anickel]

15. Yeah, I've noticed the tendencies to twist some of the ideas of

early economists into some bizarre mutation.
I've noticed an increased interest in "Institutional Economics" which is something I'd like to take a closer look at in the near future.

[Orrin_73]

8. John Maynard Keynes!!!

kucinich.us

sharpton2004.org

Tom DeLay:"I challenge anyone to live on my salary" <$158,000 a [br />year]
http://www.muslimwakeup.com/mainarchive/images/wolfowitz_of_arabia300.
gif

[stevebreeze]

10. Dean Baker Mark Weisbrot

a must read is SS the phony crises.

They were among the few who predicted the stock market drop, and the fragility of the federal surplus.

[depakid]

11. Not exactly an economist, but Garret Hardin

sure turned a lightbulb on for me way back when I was an undergrad. It's impossible for me to think about unregulated free markets and libertarian economics like Cato espouses without thinking about The Tragedy of the Commons.

[swinney]

12. www.cbpp.org

www.ctj.org
www.fairtaxes4all.org
www.ombwatch.org
www.taxpayersforcommonsense.org

[papau]

14. MIT's Paul Samuelson has to be on folks list of great economists

and not just because I studied under him! - He really really was great- as in the Nobel laureate internationally noted for
establishing the agenda of modern economics and developing the scientific tools to analyze its components, and a recipients of the National Medal of Science this year.

Dr. Samuelson, Institute Professor emeritus, was recognized "for his fundamental contributions to economic science, education and policy for nearly 60 years, establishing both the agenda of modern economics and scientific standards for economic analysis of a wide range of problems including social security and the public debt, welfare and international trade."

The Swedish Royal Academy, in its award citation, said, "Professor Samuelson's extensive production, covering nearly all areas of economic theory, is characterized by an outstanding ability to derive important new theorems and to find new applications for existing ones. By his contributions, Samuelson has done more than any other contemporary economist to raise the level of scientific analysis in economic theory." The academy also noted that Professor Samuelson has "rewritten considerable parts of central economic theory and has in several areas achieved results which now rank among the classical theories of economics."

I think one is well served by the purchase of his famous text, Economics, which first came out in 1948. Its 17 editions have produced more than 3 million copies in English and more than 40 other languages. The book was the first to explain to beginning students the principles of Keynesian economics, which Professor Samuelson has long advocated. But unlike some Keynesians, Professor Samuelson has maintained that the private market also has an important role, along with government, in promoting a healthy economy.

He won international renown with his first major work, Foundations of Economic Analysis (1947) in which he confronted the contradictions, overlaps and fallacies in the classical language of economics and found unification and clarification in mathematics. He wrote that his fellow economists had been practicing "mental gymnastics of a peculiarly depraved type," and that they were like "highly trained athletes who never ran a race." He did not claim that mathematics would cure all the ills of economic analysis, but he insisted that mathematics was essential.

And he was a nice guy!

:-)

[WheresWaldo]

16. Soros and Krugman

good reads. Also a fan of Amartya Sen and Mehboob al-Haq. Sen got the Nobel for Econ in 1998, and al-Haq started the UN Development Report.

[togiak]

17. Laffer and Canto

for being so wrong yet still sticking hard to it.

[woodstockjimi]

18. i am oblivious to how to start my own thread...but

i have a really good question about the fair tax issue

[Jim Warren]

19. E.F. Schumacher

A Rhodes Scholar in economics, an economic advisor to the British Control Commission in postwar Germany, and, for the twenty years prior to 1971, the top economist and head of planning at the British Coal Board.
Then he wrote: Small is Beautiful; economics as if people mattered.

[salin]

20. My late father

:D *props to my pops*

He was influenced by Veblen, and Keynes. Galbraith was on his doctoral committee. And in the eighties he tried to get me to read Lester Thurow as a counter commentary to the big push to popularize Milton Friedman.

[54anickel]

22. To your "Pops"

:toast:

[papau]

23. and to the son :-)

:toast:

[salin]

24. while my brother appreciates it

this daughter will join in the toast :toast: :D

[papau]

26. My daughters would have a a great time with my error! Let's keep

it a DU secret!

:toast:

:-)

[54anickel]

25. Salin, that was you that shared the thoughts on your father with us in

the Stock Market Watch thread a while ago wasn't it? Sorry, I am bad at remembering names. I remember that discussion very well though.

On edit:

I just went searching, and yes it was you! Feb 5th. It was great to review that thread again.

Another round to you and your father.

:toast:

[salin]

27. Yes, that was me

thanks for remembering. :toast:

And to papau... no worries it will be our DU secret ;-)

[lams712]

21. Another person who ranks up there for me....

....even thoughe was not an economist (but did write extensively on economic issues) was Michael Harrington.

[ThJ]

28. Hamilton

Yes, Alexander Hamilton. Perhaps he is not best known as an economist, but I have much respect for his opinions on political economy.

[mastein]

31. Does that include his thoughts on the "swinish masses"?

[Centre_Left]

29. Maybe I'm going too far out on a limb since this is DU...

But I would have to say Adam Smith.

[salin]

30. I would suggest that you would find a lot

of agreement on that point.

[Centre_Left]

32. That I'm going far out on a limb?

Or are you saying that other people would agree that Adam Smith is their favorite economist?

[On the Road]

33. If You're Talking About Third-World Economics,

Try Ivan Illich for a perspective out of left field. "Tools for Conviviality," for example. I believe he was a defrocked priest who spent much of his life among the poor in Latin America.

Illich believed that the US economic structure was not right for most third-world countries. He sought low-tech, low-cost ways of production and transport that could be used universally within poor countries. He even criticized Western education as inappropriate.

Truly an original thinker. Even if you don't agree 100%, he's a good foil for globalist/neoliberal economics. Here's some of his writings:

http://www.preservenet.com/theory/Illich.html