JEWS IN ECONOMICS



Apart from Adam Smith, the greatest of the classical economists was David Ricardo, who is regarded by many to be the founder of economics as a science involving analytical modeling and mathematical analysis. According to John Maynard Keynes, "Ricardo's mind was the greatest that ever addressed itself to economics."1 Ricardo formulated the famous laws of comparative advantage and of diminishing returns (the latter also discovered by Malthus). Moreover, Ricardo's principled arguments for non-inflationary monetary policy and for free trade were instrumental in gaining passage of the Peel Act and repeal of the Corn Laws in England, which played a major role in unleashing the full potential of the industrial revolution. Other major Jewish figures in the history of economic thought include Karl Marx, Ludwig von Mises, Paul Samuelson, Kenneth Arrow, Milton Friedman, Gary Becker, and John von Neumann.2