Economics is an influential introductory textbook by American economists Paul Samuelson and William Nordhaus. It was first published in 1948, and has appeared in eighteen different editions, the most recent in 2004. It was the best selling economics textbook for many decades and still remains popular,[1] selling over 300,000 copies of each edition from 1961 through 1976.[2] The book has been translated into forty-one languages and in total has sold over four million copies.
Economics was written entirely by Samuelson until the 1985 twelfth edition. Newer editions have been revised by Nordhaus.
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Influence
Samuelson hoped for and claimed broad influence for his text, stating "I don't care who writes a nation's laws–or crafts its advanced treaties–if I can write its economics textbooks."[3]
Economics coined the term "neoclassical synthesis" and popularized the concept,[4] bringing a mix of neoclassical economics and Keynesian economics and helping make this the leading school in mainstream economics in the United States and globally in the second half of the 20th century.
It popularized the term paradox of thrift, and attributed the concept to Keynes, though Keynes himself attributed it to earlier authors, and forms of the concept date to antiquity.
The 1958 text introduced a "family tree of economics", which by the 20th century consisted of only two schools, Marxist-Leninist socialism and Marshall-Keynes "neo-classical synthesis", paralleling the then-extant Cold War economies of Soviet communism and American capitalism. This advanced a simplified view of the vying schools of economic thought, subsuming schools which considered themselves distinct, and today many within and without economics equal "economics" with "neo-classical economics", following Samuelson. Later editions provided expanded coverage of other schools, such as the Austrian school, Institutionalism, and Marxian economics.[2]
See also
- Principles of Economics, a similarly influential earlier textbook
References
- ^ Bethell, Tom (1989-10-13). "Socialism by the textbook: our best-selling economics textbooks still treat socialism as the ideal system, communism as its imperfect-but-ever-improving embodiment". National Review. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n19_v41/ai_7998155/pg_1. Retrieved 2008-11-09.
- ^ a b Skousen, Mark (1997). "The Perseverance of Paul Samuelson's Economics". Journal of Economic Perspectives 11 (2): 137–152. http://www.mskousen.com/Books/Articles/perserverance.html.
- ^ Nasar, Silvia, "Hard Act to Follow?," New York Times, March 14, 1995, C1, C8.
- ^ Blanchard, Olivier Jean (1008), "neoclassical synthesis," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition. Abstract.
- Samuelson, Paul A. (1948). Economics: An Introductory Analysis McGraw-Hill.
- Samuelson, Paul A.; William D Nordhaus (2004). Economics. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-287205-5.
- Samuelson, Paul A.; Harold W. McGraw, Jr., William D. Nordhaus, Orley Ashenfelter, Robert M. Solow and Stanley Fischer (1999). "Samuelson's Economics at Fifty: Remarks on the Occasion of the Anniversary of Publication". Journal of Economic Education 30 (4): 352–363. JSTOR SICI 0022-0485%28199923%2930%3A4%3C352%3AS%22AFRO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Y.
External links
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