Richard Cantillon (1680–1734) And Jacques Turgot (1727–1781)

Richard Cantillon was an Irish refugee who fled to France after the defeat of James II. As a business associate of John Law he sold stock on a rising market and made a fortune from the Mississippi Bubble. His one great book Essay on the Nature of Commerce in General circulated widely among French and English economic writers and was widely quoted and even plagiarised by amongst others Hume, Turgot, Mirabeau, Stewart and Adam Smith.

Jacques Turgot was a leading physiocrat, an economic theorist whose Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Riches (1770) was a major influence on Adam Smith, and an early example of the economist as policymaker. The Reflections is a remarkable book containing the concept of the division of labour, the distinction between the market price and the natural equilibrium price of commodities, and the stress on the volume of real savings as the prime determinant of an economy’s rate of growth. Turgot was even more insistent than Adam Smith in propounding the notion that least government in economic matters is best government and left no doubt that the forces of the market could be relied on to drive an economy automatically to an equilibrium position.

Contents:
1. Henry Higgs (1892), 'Cantillon's Place in Economics'
2. Henry Higgs (1891), 'Richard Cantillon'
3. Joseph Hone (1944), 'Richard Cantillon, Economists - Biographical Note'
4. May J. Bowman (1951), 'The Consumer in the History of Economic Doctrine'
5. Bert F. Hoselitz (1951), 'The Early History of Entrepreneurial Theory'
6. Joseph J. Spengler (1954), 'Richard Cantillon: First of the Moderns II'
7. P.D. Groenewegen (1970), 'A Reappraisal of Turgot's Theory of Value, Exchange and Price Determination'
8. P.D. Gronewegen (1971), 'A Re-interpretation of Turgot's Theory of Capital and Interest'
9. Robert F. Herbert (1981), 'Richard Cantillon's Early Contributions to Spatial Economics'
10. Vincent J. Tarascio (1981), 'Cantillon's Theory of Population Size and Distribution'
11. Michael J. Bordo (1983), 'Some Aspects of the Monetary Economics of Richard Cantillon'
12. Antoin E. Murphy (1984), 'Richard Cantillon - an Irish Banker in Paris'
12. P.D. Groenewegen (1983), 'Turgot's Place in the History of Economic Thought: A Bicentary Estimate'
14. Anthony Brewer (1987), 'Turgot: Founder of Classical Economics'
15. Anthony Brewer (1988), 'Cantillon and the Land Theory of Value'
16. Anthony Brewer (1988), 'Cantillon and Mercantilism'
Name Index.