The Founder of Economics

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 496.

Outstanding Economists

Text 3

Questions

1. What degree do undergraduate students study for?

2. What is a second, more specialized degree in economics?

3. What kind of degree is MBA? What is the aim of MBA program?

4. What is the PhD program designed for?

5. What field of activity would you choose: economics or business administration? Give your arguments.

Work in groups of three. Look at the outline after the text. Each person should scan one of the articles and take notes in the appropriate section of the outline. Then share information so that you and your partner have the same data and can fill in the outline completely.

A.

Adam Smith was born in Kirkcaldy located to the north of Edinburgh in 1723. In 1740, at the age of seventeen, Smith was sent off to Oxford on scholarship. In 1751 Adam Smith became a professor of Logic at Glasgow. It was his first academic appointment. As a teacher in public he wrote almost nothing, and though at the beginning of a lecture he often hesitated, and seemed not to be sufficiently possessed of the subject, yet in a minute or two he became fluent, and poured out an interesting series of animated arguments. His students loved him, and he acquired a great reputation as a lecturer.

Smith was a curious human being. He treasured his library, and was continually absorbed in abstractions. He was notoriously absent-minded. Smith led a quiet and sheltered life; he lived with his mother and remained a bachelor all his life.

Smith devoted his life to scientific research. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations is his magnum opus. Published with great success in 1776 it became the foundation of the science of economics. In his book Smith considered how individual prices are set, studied the determination of prices for land, labor, and capital, and examined the strengths and weaknesses of the free market mechanism.

Adam Smith introduced the term of “invisible hand” that is economic forces that regulate supply and demand of goods in the market. Using his now famous “invisible hand” analogy, Smith argued that the self-interested actions of individuals actually guide market outcomes to yield great economic benefits for the broader society

Adam Smith became the first political economist the world had ever known. He took his place at the head of the first school of economics, one that continues and is known as the “classical school.”

B.