Based on the six topics of rationality, confidence, money, regulation, business and globalisation, these imaginary radio programmes provide a pretext for discovering 18 renowned economists who have greatly influenced the currents of economic thinking.
Choose your programme :
They are quoted in the programme, learn more about them :
© Thomas Phillips/National Portrait Gallery, London/Licence Creative Commons David Ricardo
One of the most influential economists of the classical school, the Englishman David Ricardo was born in London in 1772 and died in 1823 at Gatcombe Park (United Kingdom).
At the tender age of 14, he learned about the functioning of finance alongside his father. Following a family conflict, he founded his own stockbroker business and soon made a fortune. After discovering political economics and the works of Adam Smith, he published a series of articles on the depreciation of money and entered the House of Commons where he defended free exchange and the repeal of the Corn Laws to protect the cereal trade.
Self-taught, Ricardo used his principal work "The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation" to set out the concepts of free exchange and comparative advantage which in his view enables a country to increase its wealth by specialising in its most effective production.
© Licence Creative Commons Paul Krugman
Born in 1953 in Long Island (New York state), Paul R. Krugman is an American Neo-Keynesian economist well known for his editorials in the New York Times.
After studying history at the University of Yale, then obtaining a doctorate in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he became professor of economics and international relations at the University of Princeton. Well known to the general public for his laymen publications and virulent articles attacking the policies of George W. Bush, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2008 for his new theory of international trade.
In particular, Krugman analyses economies of scale (reduction in the unit cost of a product when production increases) on models of international trade and location of economic activities, based on the observation that consumers prefer the diversity of products in a single branch.
© Joseph Kriehuber/Licence Creative Commons Friedrich List
A German journalist and economist, Friedrich List was born in 1789 in Reutlingen (Bade-Wurtemberg) and died in 1846 in Kufstein (Austria).
In turn a government employee, teacher, member of parliament, businessman, consul and journalist, he lived in Germany, England, the United States and France. Cofounder in 1819 of the German association for commerce and industry, he was one of the theoreticians and initiators of the Zollverein (customs and trade union between the German states) of 1834. His major work "The national system of political economy" was published in 1841.
A critic of Adam Smith, Friedrich List recommended the use of customs duties to favour the birth of competitive national industries and defended the thesis of "educative protectionism", whereby a state temporarily protects young and fragile industries.