Richard Cantillon (1680-1734), acknowledged by many historians as the first great economic "theorist", is an obscure character. This much is known: he was an Irishman with a Spanish name who lived in France. He is said to have speculated profitably in Compagnie Perpetuelle des Indes shares, unlike so many others, during the John Law adventures, making a fortune of some twenty million livres before moving to England. He died in a fire in his London home - allegedly set by his discharged cook. Events First Portuguese governor was appointed to Macau The Swedish city Karlskrona was founded as the Royal Swedish Navy relocated there. ... Events January 8 - Premiere of George Frideric Handels opera Ariodante at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. ... In August 1717 Scottish businessman John Law acquired a controlling interest in the then derelict Mississippi Company and renamed it the Compagnie d’Occident (or Compagnie du Mississippi). ... Jean Law John Law (bap. ...

Cantillon's entire reputation rests on his one remarkable treatise, Essai Sur la Nature du Commerce en Général that was written in French circa 1732 and published anonymously in England some twenty years after his death (some claim it was only a French translation of a lost English original). Although his work was well-known to the Physiocrats and the French school, Cantillon fell into obscurity in the English-speaking world until resurrected and popularized by William Stanley Jevons in the 1880s. The Physiocrats were a group of economists who believed that the wealth of nations was derived solely from agriculture. ... [William Stanley Jevons] William Stanley Jevons (September 1, 1835 - August 13, 1882), English economist and logician, was born in Liverpool. ...

Cantillon was perhaps the first to define long-run equilibrium as the balance of flows of income, thus setting the foundations both for Physiocracy as well as Classical Political Economy. Cantillon's system was clear and simple and absolutely path-breaking. He developed a two-sector general equilibrium system from which he obtained a theory of price (determined by costs of production) and a theory of output (determined by factor inputs and technology). His work is quoted by Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations. According to Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek, Jevons was scarcely exaggerating when he entitled it the 'Cradle of Political Economy'". The Physiocrats were a group of economists who believed that the wealth of nations was derived solely from agriculture. ... Classical economics is widely regarded as the first modern school of economic thought. ... General Equilibrium (linear) supply and demand curves. ... For other persons named Adam Smith, see Adam Smith (disambiguation). ... An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations is the magnum opus of Adam Smith, published in 1776. ... The Nobel Prizes (pronounced no-BELL or no-bell) are awarded annually to people who have done outstanding research, invented groundbreaking techniques or equipment, or made outstanding contributions to society. ... Friedrich August von Hayek, CH (May 8, 1899 in Vienna – March 23, 1992 in Freiburg) was an Austrian-born British economist and political philosopher known for his defense of liberal democracy and free-market capitalism against socialist and collectivist thought in the mid-20th century. ... [William Stanley Jevons] William Stanley Jevons (September 1, 1835 - August 13, 1882), English economist and logician, was born in Liverpool. ...

He followed up on William Petty's conjecture about the par of labour and land, thereby enabling him to reduce labor to the amount of necessities needed to sustain it and thus making both labor supply and output a function of the land absorption necessary to produce the necessities to feed labor and the luxuries to feed landlords. By demonstrating that relative prices are reducible to land-absorption rates, Cantillon can be said to have derived a fully-working "land theory of value". Sir William Petty (May 27, 1623 – December 16, 1687) was an English economist, scientist and philosopher. ...

Cantillon's careful description of a supply-and-demand mechanism for the determination of short-run market price (albeit not long-run natural price) also stand him as a progenitor of the Marginalist Revolution. In particular, his insightful notes on entrepreneurship (as a type of arbitrage) have made him a darling of the modern Austrian School. Cantillon was also one of the first (and among the clearest) articulators of the Quantity Theory of Money and attempted to provide much of the reasoning behind it. Marginalism is the use of marginal concepts within economics. ... The Austrian School, also known as the “Vienna School” or the “Psychological School”, is a heterodox school of economic thought that advocates adherence to strict methodological individualism. ... In economics, the velocity of money refers to a key term in the quantity theory of money, which centers on the equation of exchange: where is the total amount of money in circulation in an economy at any one time (say, on average during a month). ...

Finally, one of the consequences of his theory was that he arrived at a quasi-Mercantilist policy conclusion for a favorable balance of trade but with a twist: Cantillon recommended the importation of "land-based products" and the exporting of "non-land-based" products as a way of increasing national wealth. A painting of a French seaport from 1638, at the height of mercantilism. ... The balance of trade encompasses the activity of exports and imports, like the work of this cargo ship going through the Panama Canal. ...

Cantillon was born in the town of Ballyheigue, County Kerry, Ireland, lived a considerable portion of his life in France, and died in London. Kerry Head Ballyheigue (also spelled Ballyheige, Irish: Baile Uí Thaidhg) is a coastal village in County Kerry in the province of Munster, Ireland. ... Statistics Province: Munster County Town: Tralee Code: KY Area: 4,746 km² Population (2006) 139,616 Website: www. ...

Sources

• Jevons, Stanley W. (1881), "Richard Cantillon and the Nationality of Political Economy," Contemporary Review 39, January 1881, reprinted in The Principles of Economics. A Fragment of a Treatise on the Industrial Mechanism of Society and other Papers with a Preface by Henry Higgs, (London, 1905). pp. 155-83.[1]
• Hutchison, Terence W. (1988), Before Adam Smith: the emergence of political economy, Oxford.
• Murphy, Antoin E. (1986), Richard Cantillon: Entrepreneur and Economist, Oxford.

jesus This article is about Jesus of Nazareth. ...

External links

• Biography - The Life and Work of Richard Cantillon by Henry Higgs
• "Richard Cantillon", by Friedrich A. Hayek, Journal of Libertarian Studies, Fall 1985, 7(2), pp. 217-247.
• McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought | An Essay on Commerce in General - Part 1, 2, and 3
• Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en Général (The Nature of Trade in General) by Richard Cantillon -- available for download
• Richard Cantillon Land Theory of Value
• Essai sur la nature du commerce en general Part One
• Essai sur la nature du commerce en general Part Two
• Essai sur la nature du commerce en general Part Three