ver the past semester we looked at the lives times and contributions of twelve great economists
Introduction We could rank three greatest great economists who are successful for their actions, knowledge, or skill as ．great・. For the twelve great economists discussed in the course, all of them are great in several aspects. If I must pick up three of the greatest out of the twelve economists, I am sure that the fairest method is focusing on the importance and practicality of their theories. ... Being a great economist, one should generate creative and effective solution to settle the problems of the society. ... On the other hand, since economic theories were produced at different time in the past, different assumptions of theories made by the economists might not be applicable in another decade. If the theories can be applied and explored to new ideas in the ever-changing society, the economists are regarded as greatest as they contribute to the world not only at a particular time, but forever. ... Thus, I think that Keynes, who concentrated in monetary economics, Friedman, who looked at the monetary and income economics and Fisher, who focused on interest rates and also the utility ranking of individuals, should be the ones who contributed most. ... We may rank them by looking at their theories and contributions. ... When times were good again and the private sector was spending again, the government could trim its spending and pay off the debts they accumulated in the slump. ... However, he also did quite a bit of work on the theory of distribution and argued for a new way of looking at the way people decide on their consumption - the permanent-income hypothesis Friedman has made two particularly fundamental contributions to the economic policy debate. ... This equation stated that: MV = PT where: M is the amount of money in circulation V is the velocity of circulation of that money P is the average price level and T is the number of transactions taking place Classical economists suggested that V would be relatively stable and T would always tend to full employment. ... Comparison We can see that both theories by Keynes, Friedman and Fisher imposed great impacts on the economy. ... Friedman・s Quantity Theory of Money and permanent-income hypothesis developed a new way of looking at the inflation, but his contributions to the society is not greater than that of Keynes, so I rank him the second.