Major Economic Thinkers Trivia Quiz

Answer: Jean-Baptiste Colbert

Colbert was economic adviser for Louis XIV. During his tenure, France practiced a specific brand of mercantilism named Colbertism.

Answer: Adam Smith

The Scottish philosopher wrote the first modern work on economics in 1776. In the work he develops such concepts as the invisible hand and the division of labor.

Answer: Comparative Advantage

The London born economist, David Ricardo, published "On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation" in 1817. In it he develops the idea that nations should produce what they are best at compared to other goods. From this specialization, along with freer trade, nations can increase the wealth of its producers and make goods more inexpensive for the consumer.

Answer: Karl Marx

The first volume was published in 1867. Marx's collaborator Friedrich Engels edited and released Volumes 2 & 3 after Marx's death.

Answer: a fixed exchange rate, free capital movement and an independent monetary policy

The model was developed by Robert Mundell and Marcus Fleming in the 1960s to explain how a small open economy would react to the world economy.

Answer: factors of production

Eli Heckscher and Bertil Ohlin determined that the relative endowments of individual factors of production (land, labor and capital) determined what a nation was good at making. (e.g. A country like China with large endowments of labor would have a comparative advantage in goods that needed large amounts of labor input.)

Answer: Stolper-Samuelson theorem

In 1941, Wolfgang Stolper and Paul Samuelson derived their theorem from the Hecksher-Ohlin model. Stolper-Samuelson further predicted that holders of the abundant factor of production would be the most pro-free trade as they would receive larger returns on their input.

Answer: John Maynard Keynes

In the 1936 work, Keynes theorized that to achieve "full employment" of labor and capital, government spending, even into deficit, should be made to increase the "aggregate demand" on goods and services.

Answer: Friedrich Hayek

In his 1944 work, Hayek argues that any sort of "planning" by the government in economics will eventually lead to the rule of the few, those who do the planning, over the many, who eventually become nothing more than serfs to the few.

Answer: Milton Friedman

In his 1962 book, Friedman argued against the prevailing wisdom of Keynesian economics that had predominated the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. Friedman won the 1976 Nobel Prize in Economics.