Early modern Europe in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries witnessed an unprecedented increase in the rate of economic growth, and governments entertained a wide range of proposals aimed at developing and harnessing foreign trade and emerging financial markets. In his magisterial...

David Hume (1711-1776) is arguably the most esteemed philosopher to have written in the English language. During his lifetime, however, Hume was as well if not better known for his contributions to political economy, particularly for the essays published as the <em>Political Discourses</em> (1752). Hume...

Susan Carleton Athey is the 2007 recipient of the American Economic Association's John Bates Clark Medal, which is "awarded biennially to that American economist under the age of forty who is adjudged to have made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge." I have had...

Gary S. Becker's career, personality, and contributions are reviewed and commented upon. Special note is taken of his seriousness of purpose, his willingness to take chances, and his persistence in the face of criticism and hostility. Becker's exceptional influence has taken several forms:...

Kevin M. Murphy is the winner of the 1998 John Bates Clark Medal, presented by the American Economic Association every second year to an outstanding economist under the age of forty who is selected for special recognition. He is the George Pratt Schultz Professor of Business Economics and...

The Nobel Prize was given to Robert C. Merton and Myron S. Scholes for discovering a new method for determining the value of an option. This is known as the Black-Merton-Scholes option pricing formula. The purpose of this essay is to explain why the Black-Merton-Scholes option pricing formula is...

Ronald Coase wrote two great theoretical articles that earned him the Nobel Prize: "The Nature of the Firm" in 1937 and "The Problem of Social Cost" in 1960. He also wrote many articles dealing with the methodology of economics, often in the setting of a discussion of a particular economist,...

Three pioneers of quantitative finance have now been justly honored: Harry Markowitz, Merton Miller, and William Sharpe received the Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 1990. From today's perspective it is hard to understand what finance was like before portfolio theory. Here I attempt to provide...

The term "consumer sovereignty" is usually traced to William Harold Hutt and his 1936 book Economists and the Public: A Study of Competition and Opinion. Hutt paid only passing attention to the maximization of consumer welfare or the achievement of market efficiency. He was stalking different...