128 thinkers, books, and ideas connected to this field.
Hamilton Helmer's 2016 book presenting a rigorous economic taxonomy of the seven sources of durable business advantage, used by Acquired as the analytical backbone for every company they profile.
Scottish moral philosopher and economist — author of The Wealth of Nations and The Theory of Moral Sentiments — founder of modern economics — whose invisible hand metaphor and division of labor analysis are the foundational concepts of market economics.
Canadian-American economist at George Mason — co-founder of Marginal Revolution (with Tyler Cowen) — co-author of Modern Principles of Economics — who writes on innovation policy, FDA regulation, and healthcare economics.
Caribbean-born American founding father — Washington's aide-de-camp, first Secretary of the Treasury — who created the US financial system (national bank, assumption of state debts, Report on Manufactures), co-authored The Federalist Papers, and was killed in a duel with Aaron Burr.
American podcast co-hosted by 'the besties' — Jason Calacanis, Chamath Palihapitiya, David Sacks, and David Friedberg — covering technology investing, economics, and politics from a Silicon Valley venture capital perspective.
Indian economist and philosopher who developed the capabilities approach to human development, contributed to social choice theory, and has been a central figure in political philosophy of development.
American economic historian — author of The Forgotten Man (a revisionist history of the New Deal) and Coolidge (a rehabilitation of Calvin Coolidge) — the most prominent conservative economic historian of the Depression and Coolidge eras.
American technology investor and writer — former hedge fund manager — Wall Street Journal columnist — author of Wall Street Meat, Running Money, and Eat People — who writes about technology and economic disruption for general audiences.
American China economist — founding partner of Gavekal Dragonomics, the leading independent China economic research firm — author of China's Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know — one of the most credible independent analysts of Chinese economic policy.
Tyler Cowen's 2013 argument — that technology is bifurcating labor markets into high-skill workers who collaborate effectively with machines and low-skill workers who are displaced by them — one of the first serious books about AI and labor polarization.
Dutch-British physician and satirist — author of The Fable of the Bees — who argued that private vices (greed, luxury, self-interest) produce public benefits — anticipating Adam Smith's invisible hand and providing the first systematic defense of commercial society.
American economist at George Mason — author of The Myth of the Rational Voter, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, The Case Against Education, and Open Borders — who applies economic reasoning to immigration, education, and voting to produce consistently contrarian conclusions.
The investment framework that analyzes industries through the supply side — tracking capital flows in and out of industries to predict future investment returns.
Michael Porter's 1980 foundational business strategy text — introducing the Five Forces framework (threat of entry, substitutes, supplier power, buyer power, rivalry) and three generic strategies (cost leadership, differentiation, focus) — the most cited business book and the foundation of MBA strategy courses.
Angus Maddison's 2007 reconstruction of world economic history from 1 AD to 2030 — providing the most comprehensive database of historical GDP estimates — demonstrating that the West's economic superiority is a relatively recent development (post-1500) and that China and India dominated the world economy for most of history.
Adam Tooze's 2018 comprehensive history of the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath — arguing that the crisis was a crisis of global dollar funding rather than simply a banking crisis, and tracing its political consequences through the rise of populism.
British economist and financial analyst who wrote The Unaccountability Machine (2024) — applying cybernetics and systems thinking to explain why large institutions consistently fail to be accountable and make the wrong decisions — and Lying for Money (2018) on financial fraud.
Turkish-American economist at MIT who (with James Robinson) developed the institutions-based theory of economic development — arguing that inclusive political and economic institutions are the primary determinant of prosperity.
American economist — author of The Machinery of Freedom — son of Milton Friedman — who has developed the most rigorous academic case for anarcho-capitalism (the replacement of government with market-provided legal and security services).
American economist at Harvard — author of Triumph of the City — the most influential urban economist of his generation — whose work on agglomeration, housing supply, and urban productivity has shaped housing policy debates.
American urban economist — Harvard — author of Triumph of the City — the leading academic advocate for urban density as the solution to housing costs, economic development, and environmental sustainability.
Turkish-British economist and AI forecaster — researcher at Epoch AI — who works on economic models of AI's impact on growth and forecasting AI capabilities trajectories.
American mathematician and economist who coined the term 'Intellectual Dark Web' and hosted The Portal podcast — proposing the geometric theory of physics (Geometric Unity) and arguing that institutions have failed their best minds — a critic of academic gatekeeping and media orthodoxy.
Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner's 2005 book — applying economic analysis to unconventional questions (do real estate agents serve clients' interests? does sumo wrestling involve cheating? did abortion reduce crime?) — the best-selling popular economics book of the 2000s.
Stephen Dubner's podcast — extending the Freakonomics franchise into audio — covering economics, behavior, and incentives through reporting and interviews — one of the longest-running and most successful non-fiction podcasts.
Friedman's Free to Choose (1980) is the companion to his PBS television series, presenting the case for free markets and limited government in accessible prose.
Austrian-British economist and political philosopher — Nobel Prize in Economics (1974) — author of The Road to Serfdom, The Constitution of Liberty, and Prices and Production — whose argument that prices aggregate dispersed knowledge better than central planners could inspired the Reagan-Thatcher revolution.
William Beveridge's follow-up to his 1942 report — arguing that full employment (not just social insurance) is the proper goal of a free society, and that it is achievable through Keynesian demand management.
American economist at George Mason University — author of Hive Mind (on how national IQ affects economic growth) and 10% Less Democracy — who makes the most rigorous academic case that cognitive human capital, not just physical capital or institutions, drives economic development.
Business figure and Hoover Institution associate referenced in conservative policy discussions.
American writer and economist — author of Wealth and Poverty (the Reaganomics bible), Microcosm, Telecosm, and Life After Google — whose work on supply-side economics and technology forecasting has been both prescient and wildly wrong at various points.
British politician — Chancellor of the Exchequer (2010–2016) under David Cameron — former editor of the London Evening Standard — architect of British austerity policy post-2010 — who implemented the most significant UK fiscal consolidation since the 1970s.
American statesman — Secretary of Labor, Treasury, and State under three presidents — Secretary of State under Reagan (1982–89) — who managed the Cold War endgame and helped negotiate the INF Treaty — widely considered one of the greatest American Secretaries of State.
Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner's 2023 account of why large projects go over budget and schedule — and what the rare successful megaprojects have in common — covering the Pixar method, modularity, and thinking from the right to the left.
The theory that long-run economic development is determined primarily by political and economic institutions — specifically whether institutions are 'inclusive' (distributing power and opportunity broadly) or 'extractive' (concentrating power for elite extraction).
British-American political scientist and economist who co-developed with Daron Acemoglu the institutions-based theory of comparative development.
American-Canadian journalist and activist who challenged the urban renewal orthodoxy of the 1950s-60s, defending the organic complexity of existing urban neighborhoods over planned redevelopment.
American journalist and commentator — Wall Street Journal editorial board member — Manhattan Institute fellow — author of Please Stop Helping Us and False Black Power — the most prominent Black conservative critic of liberal social policy.
American philosopher and economist at Catholic University of America — Discovery Institute fellow — author of Money, Greed, and God and The Privileged Planet — who works on intelligent design arguments and the theological foundations of free market economics.
Chairman of the Federal Reserve (2018–) — former investment banker at Dillon Read and Carlyle Group — who managed Fed policy through COVID (zero interest rates, QE), the subsequent inflation surge (2022 rate hike cycle), and the largest Fed balance sheet expansion in history.
American financial economist — Rose-Marie and Jack Anderson Senior Fellow at Hoover Institution — former University of Chicago Booth School professor — author of The Fiscal Theory of the Price Level — who blogs as The Grumpy Economist.
American economist at Hoover Institution — former OMB official — author of The High Cost of Good Intentions — the leading analyst of the history of US federal entitlement programs.
Hungarian-American economist and philosopher who provided game-theoretic foundations for utilitarianism and defended rule utilitarianism independently of Rawls's veil of ignorance argument.
British economist who revolutionized macroeconomics by arguing that aggregate demand drives output — and that government should use fiscal policy to stabilize economies in recessions.
British philosopher and political economist who refined utilitarianism, developed the harm principle as the foundation of liberal politics, and was an early champion of women's suffrage.
Austrian-American economist who developed the theory of creative destruction — arguing that capitalism advances through cycles of innovation that destroy existing economic structures.
German philosopher, economist, and revolutionary who developed historical materialism — the base-superstructure thesis — the labor theory of value, alienation, and the theory of class struggle as the driver of history.
American economist — Harvard professor — former Chief Economist of the IMF — author of This Time Is Different (with Carmen Reinhart) — the most widely cited economist on government debt, financial crises, and central banking.
Former Federal Reserve Governor (2006–2011) — Hoover Institution fellow — investment banker (Morgan Stanley) — one of the youngest Federal Reserve Governors in history — considered a potential Fed Chair under Trump.
American economic commentator and former White House National Economic Council director (2018–2021) under Trump — former CNBC host — supply-side economics advocate — who worked under Reagan as OMB official.
American economist who served as Chief Economist of the World Bank, US Treasury Secretary, President of Harvard, and Director of the National Economic Council under Obama — one of the most prominent and controversial economists in public life.
Marshall Brain's 2003 science fiction novel presenting two possible AI automation futures: the first half shows a dystopia where a simple AI management system gradually takes all jobs, leaving most humans in managed poverty; the second half imagines an abundance utopia where AI creates enough for everyone through an 'Australia Project.'
British Prime Minister (1979–1990) — first female Prime Minister of the UK — who privatized state industries, broke the miners' strike, defeated Argentina in the Falklands, cut inflation from 22% to 3%, and with Reagan ended the Cold War — the most consequential British politician of the 20th century after Churchill.
British science writer and businessman — Viscount Ridley — author of The Red Queen, The Origins of Virtue, Genome, The Rational Optimist, and How Innovation Works — one of the most influential popular science writers on evolution, genetics, and innovation.
German sociologist and political economist — author of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Economy and Society, and Science as a Vocation — who created the concepts of ideal types, bureaucracy, legitimacy, and disenchantment — one of the three founders of sociology (with Marx and Durkheim).
American economist — University of Maryland — author of The Two-Parent Privilege — who argues that the decline of two-parent households is a primary driver of economic inequality and that this is a mainstream economic finding suppressed by political discomfort.
American business strategist — Harvard Business School — creator of Porter's Five Forces and the Competitive Advantage framework — the most influential business strategy theorist of the last 50 years.
American economist — Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001) with George Akerlof and Joseph Stiglitz — for his work on markets with asymmetric information — former Dean of Stanford Business School — author of The Next Convergence.
Milton Friedman was an American economist whose monetarism and advocacy for free markets made him the 20th century's most influential libertarian economist.
Michael Lewis's 2003 account of the Oakland A's use of statistical analysis to find undervalued players — the book that brought sabermetrics to mainstream audiences and launched the analytics revolution in professional sports.
Steven Landsburg's 2007 collection of economic arguments leading to counterintuitive conclusions — including the title thesis (that more sexually active people expanding the pool of cautious partners reduces HIV transmission).
Scottish historian at Hoover Institution — author of The Pity of War, Empire, The Ascent of Money, Civilization, and Kissinger — the most commercially successful academic historian of his generation — whose rehabilitation of British imperialism and contrarian geopolitical views make him consistently controversial.
American demographer at American Enterprise Institute — author of A Nation of Takers and Men Without Work — the leading analyst of American workforce decline and North Korean demography — descendant of Nicholas Murray Butler.
Polish astronomer who proposed the heliocentric model of the solar system — displacing Earth from the center of the universe — in a theory he developed over decades but published only in the year of his death, anticipating the institutional resistance his work would generate.
American-British economist — DPhil student at Oxford — associated with the Global Priorities Institute — who works on the economics of long-run welfare and patient philanthropy.
American legal scholar at NYU Law and Hoover Institution — author of Takings, Simple Rules for a Complex World, and Forbidden Grounds — the leading libertarian legal theorist in the US — who has argued for radical simplification of regulatory law.
American behavioral economist — University of Chicago Booth School — Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences 2017 — who built the behavioral economics research program on Kahneman and Tversky's foundations and co-created nudge theory.
American economist at George Mason — inventor of prediction markets (policy analysis market) — author of The Age of Em (on whole brain emulation) and The Elephant in the Brain (with Kevin Simler) — who consistently proposes contrarian models of human behavior and social institutions.
American professor at NYU Stern, entrepreneur, and media commentator whose Prof G podcast and books make sharp, sometimes contrarian arguments about Big Tech, higher education, and the economic challenges facing young men.
American data scientist and former Google economist who pioneered the use of aggregate search data as a window into genuine human behavior — revealing that what people search in private diverges dramatically from what they report in surveys.
American economist — University of Chicago — co-author of Freakonomics — who applies economic methods to unconventional questions (sumo wrestling, drug dealing, abortion and crime) — the most widely read popular economist.
American economist — University of Rochester — author of The Armchair Economist and More Sex Is Safer Sex — who applies economic logic to provocative questions to reveal counterintuitive conclusions.
Levitt and Dubner's 2009 sequel to Freakonomics — covering global warming, terrorism, and other topics through economic analysis — controversial for its climate chapter.
Turkish-British AI researcher at Epoch AI — who works on forecasting AI capabilities, compute trends, and the economics of AI development.
Ancient Indian treatise on statecraft, economic policy, and military strategy — attributed to Kautilya (Chanakya), minister of the Maurya Emperor Chandragupta — the most comprehensive ancient manual for governance, combining realism about power with systematic policy advice.
The Economist is a British weekly newsmagazine covering global politics, economics, and culture.
Bernard Mandeville's 1714 satirical poem and prose commentary — arguing that a prosperous hive of bees is built on private vices (envy, luxury, fraud) and that making the hive virtuous destroys its prosperity — the most provocative early defense of commercial society.
Eric Beinhocker's 2006 argument that the economy is a complex adaptive system (not an equilibrium system) and that wealth is created through evolution of business 'plans' competing in the fitness landscape of the market.
F.A. Hayek's 1944 argument that central economic planning inevitably leads to totalitarianism — that the administrative apparatus needed to implement a planned economy requires concentrating power that will eventually be abused regardless of the planners' intentions.
Thorstein Veblen's 1899 satire of upper-class American consumption — which coined 'conspicuous consumption' and 'pecuniary emulation' — and argued that leisure and wasteful spending signal social status to inferior classes, driving economic behavior more than utility.
Melissa Kearney's 2023 argument — that growing up in a two-parent household significantly improves children's economic outcomes and that the decline of two-parent families, particularly among less-educated Americans, is a primary driver of economic inequality.
Adam Smith's 1776 foundational text of modern economics — arguing through the pin factory, division of labor, and invisible hand metaphor that markets coordinate economic activity more efficiently than central direction — the founding document of free market economics.
Adam Smith's 1759 moral philosophy treatise arguing that human moral judgment is grounded in sympathy — the imaginative capacity to put oneself in another's position — and in the device of the 'impartial spectator': judging one's own conduct as a neutral third party would.
Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner's 2014 guide to thinking like an economist — focused on abandoning conventional wisdom, asking small questions, and using incentives to change behavior.
Thomas Robert Malthus was an English economist whose 'Essay on the Principle of Population' (1798) argued that population growth inevitably outstrips food supply, leading to famine, disease, or war as natural checks.
American economist at Hoover Institution — former Marxist turned free-market conservative — author of over 30 books including A Conflict of Visions, The Vision of the Anointed, and Discrimination and Disparities — one of the most consequential public intellectuals of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Norwegian-American economist and sociologist — author of The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) — who coined 'conspicuous consumption' and 'conspicuous leisure' — the founder of institutional economics and the most savage social critic in American economic thought.
Edward Glaeser's 2011 celebration of urban density — arguing that cities are humanity's greatest invention because density enables innovation, economic growth, and environmental sustainability, and that restrictive zoning prevents cities from fulfilling this role.
American economist — George Mason University — co-author of Marginal Revolution (most widely read economics blog) — author of The Great Stagnation, Average Is Over, and Stubborn Attachments — among the most influential public intellectual economists.
American economist — Hoover Institution fellow — acting Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers (2020) — specialist in financial history and economic crises.
Max Weber's argument that the 'spirit of capitalism' — disciplined, ascetic, rational wealth accumulation as a calling — had its origins in Calvinist Protestant theology.
Sandel's What Money Can't Buy (2012) examines the expanding role of markets in American life and argues that some goods are degraded or corrupted when bought and sold.
Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson's 2012 argument that nations fail because of extractive economic and political institutions — and succeed when they develop inclusive institutions that distribute power broadly — contrasting with geographical, cultural, or leader-based explanations of development.
Prospect theory is a behavioral economic theory that describes how people make decisions under uncertainty, belonging to the moment when economists began to question the rational choice model.
Bryan Caplan's argument that voters are not merely ignorant but systematically irrational — holding biased beliefs about economics that democracy selects for because the personal cost of wrong political beliefs is zero.
Bryan Caplan's argument that most of the return to education is signaling — not human capital accumulation — making the massive public subsidy of education a waste from society's perspective.
David Friedman's exploration of how emerging technologies — encryption, nanotechnology, brain-computer interfaces — will transform law, economics, and society.
Edward Glaeser and David Cutler's analysis of cities in the COVID era — arguing that cities' vulnerabilities are remediable and that urban density remains humanity's most powerful tool for prosperity.
Tyler Cowen's moral case for prioritizing economic growth — arguing that sustainable growth is the primary ethical obligation because of its compounding effect on future welfare.
Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok's economics blog at George Mason University — one of the most influential economics publications of the internet era, known for combining rigorous economics with cultural commentary.
Brian Potter's Substack newsletter analyzing the construction industry's productivity stagnation and the economic and regulatory causes behind the housing crisis.
Marxism is a systematic theory of history, society, and political economy centred on the claim that material conditions — especially the ownership of the means of production — determine social relations and consciousness. It holds that human history is a succession of modes of production (feudalism, capitalism, etc.) driven forward by class conflict, and that capitalism's internal contradictions will eventually give rise to a classless communist society.
British economist whose Principles of Economics (1890) founded neoclassical microeconomics — introducing supply and demand curves, consumer surplus, elasticity, and partial equilibrium analysis.
American economist and journalist whose Progress and Poverty (1879) sold millions of copies and proposed the land value tax as the solution to inequality — the most successful radical economics book in history.
Bryan Caplan's illustrated graphic novel case for open immigration — arguing that open borders would double world GDP and that restrictions on immigration are morally equivalent to apartheid.
Marx and Engels's 1848 pamphlet declaring the history of all hitherto existing society to be the history of class struggle — and calling the workers of the world to unite.
The annual Davos gathering and year-round organization (founded by Klaus Schwab in 1971) that convenes global business and political leaders to discuss world economic and governance issues.
German engineer and economist who founded the World Economic Forum in 1971 and has led it for over 50 years — promoting stakeholder capitalism and, more recently, the 'Great Reset' agenda.
The Club of Rome's 2022 follow-up to The Limits to Growth — arguing for a 'Giant Leap' involving radical wealth redistribution, food system transformation, and energy transition to achieve global sustainability.
Paul Graham's essay arguing that wealth is created by making things people want — not redistributed from others — and that startups are the most efficient mechanism for doing so.
David Friedman's comparative study of radically different legal systems — Icelandic sagas, Jewish law, Romany law, Somali xeer — arguing that private law can function without a state monopoly.
Bryan Caplan's collection of heterodox labor economics essays — applying the signaling model of education, skepticism of minimum wage effects, and open borders arguments to mainstream economic debates.
Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross's guide to identifying exceptional talent — combining unconventional interview techniques, personality assessment, and the economics of human capital.
The development economics concept describing countries that successfully industrialize to middle-income status but then stagnate — unable to transition to high-income knowledge economies.
Tyler Cowen's argument that America has become dangerously risk-averse and complacent — declining dynamism in housing, careers, startups, and personal risk-taking threatens long-term prosperity.
Bryan Caplan's analysis of the causes of poverty — arguing that individual behavior plays a larger role than structural factors, and that most anti-poverty programs fail because they don't address behavioral causes.
Business historian who wrote the most comprehensive scholarly biography of Jay Gould — rehabilitating Gould's reputation as a genuine railroad builder alongside his financial manipulations.
Political economist who studies governance in ungoverned spaces — most notably prison gangs as institutions that provide order and contract enforcement in environments where the state cannot.
Economist who applies rational choice and institutional economics to historical ungoverned societies — most famously pirates — showing that seemingly irrational or chaotic systems often have sophisticated governance logic.
Nobel Prize-winning economist who founded the study of strategic interaction — introducing focal points, commitment devices, and the analysis of bargaining under incomplete information.
Richard Werner's account of how the Bank of Japan's credit allocation decisions shaped Japan's postwar economic 'miracle' and subsequent decade of stagnation — arguing that central banks wield more autonomous power than standard accounts acknowledge.
Joe Studwell's analysis of why some Asian economies (Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China) succeeded dramatically while others (Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand) stagnated — identifying the three policies that explain the difference.
British politician and radical liberal who, with John Bright, led the Anti-Corn Law League to success (1846) — the most consequential free trade campaign in history.
American journalist and columnist — known for applying economic reasoning to policy questions from a libertarian-leaning perspective at The Atlantic, Bloomberg View, and The Washington Post.
British journalist and author who has written the most accessible and rigorous accounts of East Asian economic development — particularly How Asia Works (2013) and Asian Godfathers (2007).
German-American economist who developed the 'infant industry' argument for protectionism — the intellectual foundation of developmental nationalism in economics.
Javier Milei is an Argentine economist and politician who became President of Argentina in December 2023 after a populist anti-establishment campaign. A self-described anarcho-capitalist and libertarian, he advocates radical reduction of the state, dollarization, and free-market economics. Known for his theatrical public persona and rejection of mainstream political parties.
Canadian journalist and researcher of South Asian origin, born c. 1975. A regular contributor to the National Post and other outlets, Subramanya covers Canadian immigration policy, multicultural politics, and economic issues from a centre-right to classical-liberal perspective. Has written critically on mass immigration's economic and social effects and on the Trudeau government's policy record.