Questions tagged [adam-smith]
Economic questions that are related to a Scottish economist Adam Smith, the author of "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations"
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What is the relationship between Adam Smith's theorem on the division of labor being limited by the extent of the market and his pin factory example?
What is the relationship between Adam Smith's theorem on the division of labor being limited by the extent of the market and his pin factory example? Are they each touching upon a different aspect of ...
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How did classical economists justify the Labour Theory of Value?
I have skimmed a handful of chapters of older Political Economy books (Adam Smith, Ricardo, Marx), and I'm trying to understand how they argue for the LTV, or their versions of it(or if they take it ...
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Optimality of the free market and game-theoretic arguments
I recently heard an informal argument that went something like this:
Through individual self-interest and freedom of production and consumption, the best interest of society, as a whole, are ...
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Comparing manufacturing and services sectors with respect to the scope for division of labor
In the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith compares agriculture and manufacturing and concludes that due to the reduced scope for specialization in the former as compared to the latter, those economies that ...
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Mutual gains from trade: did Smith come up with the idea or did Menger?
Here's the EconLib page for reference. In the third paragraph, it says
Menger used his “subjective theory of value” to arrive at one of the
most powerful insights in economics: both sides gain from ...
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What are the consequences of the invisible hand?
I am currently reading The Wealth of Nations, and it is noticeable that the concept of the "invisible hand" appears only once in the whole book, and where it does appear, there is little in ...
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Does productivity lessen the birth rate as Adam Smith claims?
‘That the demand for men, like that for any other commodity, necessarily regulates the production of men, quickens it when it goes on too slowly, and stops it when it advances too fast.’ (Adam Smith, ...
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Did Adam Smith talk about the non-profit sector?
Smith's insights are mainly relevant to the for-profit sector, which according to my knowledge, is the larger of the two sectors in most free market economies.
I'm wondering whether he had any ...
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Does a free market economy sustain a greater variety of business models in any given industry?
I have a mere hunch that in a free market economy, a greater variety of business models can be supported or sustained in each industry, when compared to a more centrally planned economy. However, I ...
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Researching the "invisible hand" in academic literature
The idea of the invisible hand could be expressed as: in a competitive market, agents acting selfishly in their own self interests will make choices that benefit others. There are innumerable popular ...
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Understanding Adam Smith's assertion about the incentives of receipt holders and bank money holders
At Chapter III of Book IV of The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith makes the following assertion:
Even in ordinary and quiet times, it is in the interest of the holders of receipts to depress the agio, ...
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Why does the prohibition of importing foreign goods mean that the industry should not exceed what it can maintain?
In Chapter II of Book IV of The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith makes the following assertion:
To prohibit, by a perpetual law, the importation of foreign corn and cattle, is in reality to enact, that ...
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Why does the transportation of commodities yield a profit but that of gold and silver doesn't?
In Chapter I of Book IV of The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith makes the following assertion:
The transportation of commodities, when properly suited to the market, is always attended with a ...
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How £800,000 of specie is above what the circulation can employ?
I'm reading this (clicking it will download a PDF, so, do as you find good) analysis of Adam Smith's theory of banking and money. On page 13, the author writes:
For example, Smith
(293) says that if ...
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Did Adam Smith make a calculation error in Chapter XI of Book I?
Excerpt from Chapter XI of The Wealth of Nations (emphasis mine):
The money-price of wool, therefore, in the time of Edward III, was to its money-price in the present times as ten to seven. The ...
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Prices in 'The Wealth of Nations'
While reading 'The Wealth of Nations', I have come across terms like nominal price, consumer price, actual price, exchange price.
What each means? What is the difference between them?
Note: I am ...
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Is Adam Smith's "stock" an archaic version of "capital"?
In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith uses the word "stock" many times, but not with the meaning we ascribe to it today (supply of an asset, inventory). I take it that he refers to capital, ...
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What does Smith mean by "price of work" in this context?
I've read these excerpts from The Wealth of Nations multiple times:
In reality high profits tend much more to raise the price of work than high wages
In raising the price of commodities the rise of ...
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Was Adam Smith correct about the relative marginal productivities of capital in agriculture, manufacturing, and trade?
Adam Smith (1776):
No equal capital puts into motion a greater quantity of productive labour than that of the farmer.
After agriculture, the capital employed in manufactures puts into motion the ...
user23102
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What does Adam Smith mean when he says wages are determined by: "advancing, stationary, or declining state of the society."
I'm reading the Wealth of Nations. Smith explains in Book One that wages for labor are determined not by how wealthy a nation is but rather by its rate of growth. At the end of chapter seven he ...
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In Smith's theory, what is the difference between the "nominal price" vs. "market price" and "real price" vs. "natural price"?
In Adam's Fallacy, Foley writes:
"Smith distinguishes what he calls the nominal price of a commodity (the amount of money for which it exchanges) from the real price of the commodity, the amount of ...
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What does Adam Smith mean by equality of condition?
According to Chomsky, Adam Smith distingushes between equality of opportunity and equality of condition and that he supported the latter over the former.
Although I have come across the former term ...
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Where did Adam Smith write the following and in what context?
Contra the a certain fetishisation of Adam Smiths thought he wrote:
The vile maxim of the masters of mankind: all for ourselves and nothing for other people.
I'm assuming that this is from his ...
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Did the word "than" mean something different in The Wealth of Nations? [closed]
What does the last phrase after the last comma in this sentence mean?
And, in the end, the civil magistrate will find that he has dearly
paid for his intended frugality, in saving a fixed ...
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Zero-sum games being converted into positive-sum games
It seems as if "pure, naked self-interest", that is, self-interest without liberty, results often in a zero-sum game. (I'm using the term liberty in a Lockean sense, where it is taken to mean the ...
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