''Economics'' (''Economics: An Introductory Analysis'' in later editions) is an introductory textbook by American economists

Paul Samuelson Paul Anthony Samuelson (May 15, 1915 – December 13, 2009) was an American economist who was the first American to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. When awarding the prize in 1970, the Swedish Royal Academies stated that he "h ...

and William Nordhaus. The textbook was first published in 1948, and has appeared in nineteen different editions, the most recent in 2009. It was the bestselling

economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

textbook for many decades and still remains popular, selling over 300,000 copies of each edition from 1961 through 1976. 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 12th edition (2001). Newer editions have been revised with others, including Nordhaus for the 17th edition (2001) and afterwards.

Influence

''Economics'' has been called a "canonical textbook", and the development of mainstream economic thought has been traced by comparing the fourteen editions under Samuelson's editing. ''Economics'' coined the term "

neoclassical synthesis The neoclassical synthesis (NCS), or neoclassical–Keynesian synthesis Mankiw, N. Gregory. "The Macroeconomist as Scientist and Engineer". '' The Journal of Economic Perspectives''. Vol. 20, No. 4 (Fall, 2006), p. 35. is an academic movement a ...

" and popularized the concept, bringing a mix of

neoclassical economics Neoclassical economics is an approach to economics in which the production, consumption, and valuation (pricing) of goods and services are observed as driven by the supply and demand model. According to this line of thought, the value of a go ...

and

Keynesian economics Keynesian economics ( ; sometimes Keynesianism, named after British economist John Maynard Keynes) are the various macroeconomics, macroeconomic theories and Economic model, models of how aggregate demand (total spending in the economy) strongl ...

and helping make this the leading school in

mainstream economics Mainstream economics is the body of knowledge, theories, and models of economics, as taught by universities worldwide, that are generally accepted by economists as a basis for discussion. Also known as orthodox economics, it can be contrasted to ...

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 groupings, "socialism", listing

Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

and

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

, and the "neo-classical synthesis", listing Marshall and Keynes. This paralleled the then-extant

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

economies of Soviet

communism Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...

and American

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...

. 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 equate "economics" with "neo-classical economics", following Samuelson. Later editions provided expanded coverage of other schools, such as the

Austrian school The Austrian school is a Heterodox economics, heterodox Schools of economic thought, school of economic thought that advocates strict adherence to methodological individualism, the concept that social phenomena result primarily from the motivat ...

, Institutionalism, and

Marxian economics Marxian economics, or the Marxian school of economics, is a heterodox school of political economic thought. Its foundations can be traced back to Karl Marx's critique of political economy. However, unlike critics of political economy, Marxian ...

Reception

''Economics'' was the second Keynesian textbook in the United States, following the 1947 ''The Elements of Economics,'' by Lorie Tarshis. Like Tarshis's work, ''Economics'' was attacked by American conservatives (as part of the Second Red Scare, or

McCarthyism McCarthyism is a political practice defined by the political repression and persecution of left-wing individuals and a Fear mongering, campaign spreading fear of communist and Soviet influence on American institutions and of Soviet espionage i ...

), universities that adopted it were subject to "conservative business pressuring", and Samuelson was accused of

Communism Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...

. Nonetheless, ''Economics'' proved successful and remained widely adopted. The success of Samuelson's text, compared with Tarshis's, which was subject to more "virulen attacks, is attributed to various factors, notably Samuelson's dispassionate, scientific style, in contrast to Tarshis's more engaged style, and subsequent texts have followed Samuelson's style. Accusations by conservatives of communist sympathies in ''Economics'' continued into the 1980s.

Influence

Reception

See also

References

Further reading