The Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith (1723-1790) believed that in a laissez-faire economy the impulse of self-interest would work toward the public welfare. Adam Smith was born on June 5, 1723, at Kirkcaldy. His father had died two mon...

The Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith (1723-1790) believed that in a laissez-faire economy the impulse of self-interest would work toward the public welfare. Adam Smith was born on June 5, 1723, at Kirkcaldy. His father had died two mon...

There is something of a cult of Adam Smith at present. One devotee (George J. W. Goodman) has appropriated Smith's name to sell books about making money, others advise local and central governments in Britain and administrations in the United States of A...

Adam SMITH’S masterly treatise on economics first published in 1776. Although CANTILLON had previously produced a general work on economics as a whole, it was Smith’s which was to provide a comprehensive statement of the subject and to...

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations is the magnum opus of the Scottish economist Adam Smith, published on March 9,1776 during the Scottish Enlightenment. It is a clearly written account of political economy at the dawn of the...

Environment: A new report on deforestation draws a link between wealth and the conservation of resources. There's an economic lesson here -- and a warning.The lesson, touched on by last week's biannual State of the World's Forests from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO),...

Journalism: America's companies are shutting down factories and offices, and shipping jobs wholesale overseas. That's how the media have portrayed it. In reality, outsourcing has created more, better-paying jobs here.The media love victims. So when industries began moving jobs once done here to low-cost labor...

In the following excerpt, Small comments on the extent to which extra-economic factors such as sociology and psychology enter into Smith's analysis in The Wealth of Nations, and also compares Smith's economic theories with those of Karl Marx.

Hollander defends Smith against charges that The Wealth of Nations contains numerous inconsistencies and assesses his contribution to formal and applied classical economics. The critic underscores Smith's responsiveness to changing economic conditions brought about by contemporary technological and sociological developments, particularly as displayed in his theory of the competitive allocation of resources.

In the following essay on The Wealth of Nations, Campbell and Skinner provide a comprehensive analysis of Smith's economic system, explaining and discussing the interrelationship among his theories of production, labor, wages, price and distribution, profits, savings and investment, interest rates, and capital accumulation. The authors also comment on Smith's policy recommendations concerning government regulation of the economy.