Date: Sun, 26 Jan 1997 07:01:17 -0800 (PST) From: Fred Foldvary Subject: the great free-market economists I am making a list of the great free-market economists, to be used in a publication. The list below is expanded from that I posted to the Austrian Econ list. Some are in it because they espoused a free market. Others were not necessarily avid free-marketeers but were influential in free-market thought. The list implies no endorsement of all their thoughts. If you can think of others (dead or living) who should be added, or some that should be deleted, I welcome suggestions, privately or via the list. Thanks for any help. Fred Foldvary --------------------------------------- Great Free-Market Economists Kenneth Arrow Frederic Bastiat Gary Becker James Buchanan R. H. Coase Milton Friedman Henry George F. A. Hayek Frank Knight Carl Menger John Locke Robert Lucas Ludwig von Mises David Ricardo Murray Rothbard Thomas Sargent Jean-Babtiste Say Adam Smith Robert Solow George Stigler Gordon Tullock A.R.J. Turgot Knut Wicksell =========================================================================== Date: Sun, 26 Jan 1997 11:43:31 -0600 (CST) From: "Andrew Rutten" Subject: How did you miss....???? Fred, Interesting list. Here are some obvious additions: The UCLA/property rights/transactions costs gang: Alchian/Demsetz/Cheung These guys did as much as Coase to steer economics towards the study of property rights and then institutions. (Indeed, Coase himself says that he didn't really understand the broader implications of his work until Steve explained them to him.) Think of what the world of teaching intro econ would be like without Alchian & Allen. The law & economics guys: Director/Manne/Posner Like the UCLA guys, they were crucial to the success of Coase's ideas; without them it's hard to believe that economics would be as central to legal analysis and education as it is today. Henry Simons With Frank Knight, he's the founder of the Chicago School. In fact, I'd give him *more* credit. His book "Economic Policy for a Free Society" is much more lucid and readable than anything that Knight wrote. =========================================================================== Date: Sun, 26 Jan 1997 12:14:53 -0500 (EST) From: Mark J Perry Fred: I propose that Robert Barro be added to the list. Besides his academic contributions, his WSJ op-eds over the last 5 years have usually been extremely pro-market. And in his new book that is a collection of his op-eds, he describes himself as a libertarian. And his textbook, Macroeconomics, is the only non-Keynesian intermediate macro textbook on the market - he has only one chapter on Keynesian macro, at the very end of the book. Mark $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Professor Mark J. Perry Office phone: 810-762-3274 Assistant Professor of Economics University of Michigan-Flint Flint, MI 48502-2186 Email: mjperry@umich.edu $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ =========================================================================== Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1997 10:45:02 -0800 (PST) From: Fred Foldvary Correction: Error: R. Solow is obviously not in the list of free-market economists. Regarding Arrow, one colleague wrote: Yes, I would classify Arrow as a political liberal. And yet he may nevertheless be one of the great free market economists. It seems to me that an important implication of the Arrow Theorem is that any effort to decide what is right based on a Social Welfare Function is bound to have indefensible properties. Another wrote to criticize the "impossibility theorem." Arrow is deleted, but moved to a list of those influential in free-market economic thought. Further comments welcomed. This is a work in progress; thanks for all suggestions. Fred Foldvary =========================================================================== Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1997 14:24:33 -0500 From: holcombe@garnet.acns.fsu.edu (Randall Holcombe) >Regarding Arrow, one colleague wrote: > >Yes, I would classify Arrow as a political liberal. And yet he may >nevertheless be one of the great free market economists. It seems to me >that an important implication of the Arrow Theorem is that any effort to >decide what is right based on a Social Welfare Function is bound to have >indefensible properties. > >Another wrote to criticize the "impossibility theorem." > >Arrow is deleted, but moved to a list of those influential in free-market >economic thought. Further comments welcomed. Buchanan has written in a number of places how public choice economics differs from social choice economics, using Arrow as the social choice example. The very notion that there is some optimal ordering of social states of the world seems at odds with free market economics. Buchanan's first written critique along these lines was a review of SOCIAL CHOICE AND INDIVIDUAL VALUES in the JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY around the time when the book first appeared. A similar (though less developed) statement appears in his recent autobiographical book, BETTER THAN PLOWING. Randy Holcombe