The Economics Book

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

The macroeconomy

KEY THINKER

Jean-Baptiste Say (1767–1832)

BEFORE

1820 British economist Thomas Malthus argues that underemployment and overproduction can occur.

AFTER

1936 John Maynard Keynes states that supply does not create its own demand—it is possible for a lack of demand to cause production to slow, creating unemployment.

1950 Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises argues that Keynes’ denial is at the basis of Keynesian fallacies about economics.

2010 Australian economist Steven Kates defends Say’s law and calls Keynesian economics a “conceptual disease.”

In 1776, when Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations, he noted that merchants around ...