The neutrality of this article is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until conditions to do so are met. (May 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
|
This is a list of important publications in economics, organized by field.
Some basic reasons why a particular publication might be regarded as important:
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
Importance: Topic creator, Breakthrough, Influence, Introduction
editDescription: Elaborates, clarifies and corrects previous theories, and adds important new concepts
Importance: Breakthrough, influence (esp on Marx), broadened scientific foundations of economics
editDescription: 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.
Importance: Breakthrough, Influence
editDescription: 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: Influence, Breakthrough...
Influence: Credited with co-founding of marginal utility analysis and the Austrian School of economics.
Influence: Standard text for generations of economics students.
Importance:: Influential multi-level, best-selling principles textbook that popularized neoclassical synthesisofKeynesian economics and neoclassical economics.
Description: See Importance.
Importance: The book builtonordinal 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.
Among the most important list of publication in macroeconomics are:
editDescription: 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.
Importance: Topic creator, Breakthrough, Influence
editDescription: Friedman and Schwartz used changes in monetary aggregates to explain business cycle fluctuations in the United States economy.
Importance: Influence
Description: The book by the mathematician John von Neumann and economist Oskar Morgenstern. It contained a mathematical theory of economic and social organization, based on a theory of games of strategy.
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.
Importance: Topic creator, Influence
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
Description:
Importance:
Description:
Importance:
Description:
Importance :
Description:
Importance:
Description: Describes the Dickey–Fuller test.
Importance:
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.
Description:
Importance:
Description: Extensive study about the theoretical inclusion and empirical importance of education in production.
Importance: Classic study of how investment in an individual's education and training is similar to business investments.
Description: Empirical investigation of the labor market returns to education.
Importance: Popularizing the empirical research in that subfield. Coining the so-called "Mincer equation".
Description:
This article contains content that is written like an advertisement. Please help improve it by removing promotional content and inappropriate external links, and by adding encyclopedic content written from a neutral point of view. (May 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
|
Definitive one-volume resource on the field.
Importance: Introduction
Description:
Importance:
Description: In this article, Prospect theory, a descriptive theory of choices under uncertainty, is introduced, bringing together ideas from psychology (framing and probability weighting) and economics (expected utility).
Importance: Topic creator, Breakthrough
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.
Description: A first structured and methodical survey of economic methods, with a focus on methodology.
Importance: Consolidation of the field, methodological issues.
Description: A handbook for advanced experimental and behavioral economics students.
Importance: Introduction
Description: The most influential[according to whom?] experimental economics handbook.
Importance: Introduction, Influence
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.
Importance: Precursor to most modern portfolio theory work in finance.
Description: Development of the capital asset pricing model used to determine appropriate prices for assets.
Importance: Topic creator, Influence
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
This section is empty. You can help by adding to it. (July 2010)
|
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
Economics and Consumer Behavior, Deaton & Muellbauer, Cambridge.
This section is empty. You can help by adding to it. (July 2010)
|
Description:
Importance:
Description:
Importance:
Description: First modern development economics textbook
Importance: Introduction
Description: Widely used textbook.
Importance: Introduction
Description: Widely used textbook.
Importance: Introduction
Description: examines the last 30 years of development economics, viewed through the World Bank's World Development Reports.
Description: Pigou was one of the most influential economists that dealt with Welfare economics. He developed the idea of Pigovian tax.
Importance: Topic creator, breakthrough, influence
Description: Inspired renewed interest in basic welfare issues, mentioned in Sen's Nobel citation
Importance: Influence
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.
Description: The standard health economics textbook in most leading universities. It assumes some background knowledge in economics.
Importance: Introduction.
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)