Empirical methods Prescriptive and policy This is a list of important publications in economics, organized by field.
Some basic reasons why a particular publication might be regarded as important: Description: The book is usually considered to be the beginning of modern economics.
The Butcher, the Baker, and the Brewer provide goods and services to each other out of self-interest; the unplanned result of this division of labor is a better standard of living for all three.
Marx wrote this critical analysis of capitalism and of the political economy from the perspective of historical materialism, the view that history can be understood as a sequence of modes of production in which exploiting classes extract an economic surplus from exploited classes.
Influence: Credited with co-founding of marginal utility analysis and the Austrian School of economics.
Among the most important list of publication in macroeconomics are: Description: In this book, Keynes put forward a theory based upon the notion of aggregate demand to explain variations in the overall level of economic activity, such as were observed in the Great Depression.
Importance: Topic creator, Breakthrough, Influence Description: Friedman and Schwartz used changes in monetary aggregates to explain business cycle fluctuations in the United States economy.
Importance: Influence Description: The book by the mathematician John von Neumann and economist Oskar Morgenstern.
Importance: Topic creator, Breakthrough Description: In this paper, Becker demonstrates that neoclassical economic demand curves follow simply from the fact that compensated price changes in the goods available to consumers with fixed budget sets cause corresponding shifts in the consumption opportunity sets of those consumers and thus do not require any assumptions about the rationality of market participants to justify their use.
Importance: Introduction, Influence Description: Development of the utility framework which shows an optimum can be reached using a portfolio of investments.
Importance: Breakthrough, Influence The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (1971, Harvard University Press) by Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen.
Importance: Topic creator, breakthrough, influence Description: Inspired renewed interest in basic welfare issues, mentioned in Sen's Nobel citation Importance: Influence Description: Explores the "specific differentia of medical care as the object of normative economics", demonstrating that the consideration of uncertainty is key to understanding markets in health care.
Importance: Generally considered a seminal work of enduring significance; key to the foundation of health economics as a field of study.
Those who are seeking research or dissertation topics should find this two-volume set to be an invaluable resource.