Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T07:17:49.329Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Was Richard Cantillon a Mercantilist?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2009

Mark Thornton
Mark Thornton
Affiliation:
Ludwig von Mises Institute, 518 West Magnolia Avenue, Auburn, AL 36832-4528.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Richard Cantillon is considered by many to be the first economic theorist. His contributions span such diverse topics as methodology, value and price theory, population, money, international trade, business cycles, the circular-flow model of the economy, and the price-specie-flow mechanism. His only known book, Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en Général (hereafter, the Essai), may represent one of the single largest steps forward in the social sciences. Many attempts have been made to classify Richard Cantillon into a well-defined school of thought and he has been claimed as a forerunner by many schools of economic thought, but for purposes of categorization, he is most often placed with the mercantilists. Cantillon lived and wrote before the Physiocrats. He was involved in John Law's Mississippi Bubble, one of the grandest attempts to actualize the mercantilist dream of increasing the supply of money, and he was involved in the merchant trade and merchant banking business, so it would be natural to consider him a mercantilist writer. Those who have classified him as a mercantilist, however, base their categorization mainly on excerpts from the Essai where Cantillon seems to display sympathy with mercantilist policy objectives in such areas as international trade, monetary policy, and economic development.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 29 , Issue 4 , December 2007 , pp. 417 - 435
Copyright
Copyright © The History of Economics Society 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Blaug, Mark (1962) Economic Theory in Retrospect (Homewood, IL: Richard D. Irwin, Inc.).Google Scholar
Bloomfield, Arthur I. (1938) The Foreign-Trade Doctrines of the Physiocrats, American Economic Review, 28 (12), pp. 716–35.Google Scholar
Boyer, Robert (1987) Regulation, in: Eatwell, John, Milgate, Murray, and Newman, Peter (Eds) The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, Vol. 4 (New York: The Stockton Press), pp. 126–28.Google Scholar
Brewer, Anthony (1988) Cantillon and Mercantilism, History of Political Economy, 20 (Fall), pp. 447–60.Google Scholar
Brewer, Anthony (1992) Richard Cantillon: Pioneer of Economic Theory (New York: Routledge).Google Scholar
Breyer, Stephen and MacAvoyPaul, A. Paul, A. (1987) Regulation and Deregulation, in: Eatwell, John, Milgate, Murray, and Newman, Peter (Eds) The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, Vol. 4 (New York, NY: The Stockton Press), pp. 128–34.Google Scholar
Cantillon, Richard (1755a) Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en Général, edited with an English translation by Higgs, Henry (London: Frank Cass and Company Ltd., 1959).Google Scholar
Cantillon, Richard (1755b) Essay on the Nature of Commerce in General, English translation of Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en General with a new Introduction by Anthony Brewer (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2001).Google Scholar
Ekelund, Robert B., and Hébert, Robert F. (1975) A History of Economic Theory and Method (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company).Google Scholar
Ekelund, Robert B., and Tollison, Robert D. (1981) Mercantilism as a Rent-Seeking Society (College Station, TX: Texas A&M Press).Google Scholar
Grampp, William D. (1981) Cantillon's Essai as A Discourse on Policy, presented to the American Economic Association, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Grampp, William D. (1992) Cantillon Reconsidered, in: Lowry, S. Todd (Ed) Perspectives on the Administrative Tradition: From Antiquity to the Twentieth Century, Vol. VII of Perspectives on the History of Economic Thought (Brookfield, VT and Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar), pp. 64–75.Google Scholar
Haberler, Gottfried von (1936) The Theory of International Trade, with Applications to Commercial Policy (London: William Hodge & Company).Google Scholar
Hayek, F. A. (1931) Richard Cantillon, in: Bartley, W.W. III and Kresge, Stephen (Eds) The Trend of Economic Thinking: Essays on Political Economists and Economic History(Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1991).Google Scholar
Heckscher, Eli F. (1934) Mercantilism (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.).Google Scholar
Higgs, Henry (1892) Cantillon's Place in Economics, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 6 (07), pp. 436–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Higgs, Henry (1952) The Physiocrats: Six Lectures on the French “Economistes” of the 18th Century (New York: The Langland Press).Google Scholar
Hyse, Richard (1971) Richard Cantillon, Financier to Amsterdam, July to November 1720, Economic Journal, 81 (12), pp. 812–25.Google Scholar
Johnson, E. A. J. (1937) The Predecessors of Adam Smith: The Growth of British Economic Thought (New York: A.M. Kelley, 1965).Google Scholar
Krueger, A. and Sonnenschein, H. (1967) The Terms of Trade, the Gains from Trade, and Price Divergence, International Economic Review, 8 (02), pp. 121–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murphy, Antoin E. (1986) Richard Cantillon: Entrepreneur and Economist (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988).Google Scholar
Perelman, Michael (2000) The Invention of Capitalism: Classical Political Economy and the Secret History of Primitive Accumulation (Durham, NC: Duke University Press).Google Scholar
Robbins, Lord Lionel (1976) Political Economy Past and Present: A Review of Leading Theories of Economic Policy (New York: Columbia University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roll, Eric (1956) A History of Economic Thought, 3rd edition (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc.).Google Scholar
Rothbard, Murray N. (1995) Economic Thought before Adam Smith: An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Vol. I, (Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar).Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph A. (1954) History of Economic Analysis (New York, NY: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Sauvy, Alfred and Louis, Salleron (Eds) (1952) Essai sur la nature du commerce en général Texte de l'édition originale de 1755 (Paris: Institut National d'Études Démographiques).Google Scholar
Sée, Henri (1935) Economic and Social Conditions in France During the Eighteenth Century, translated by Zeydel, Edwin H. (New York: F.S. Crofts & Co.).Google Scholar
Spengler, Joseph J. (1954) Richard Cantillon: First of the Moderns II, Journal of Political Economy, 62 (10), pp. 406–24.Google Scholar
Thornton, Mark (2005) Skyscrapers and Business Cycles, Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, 8 (Spring), pp. 51–74.Google Scholar
Thornton, Mark (2006) Cantillon on the Cause of Business Cycles, Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, 9 (Fall), pp. 45–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thornton, Mark (2007) Richard Cantillon and the Discovery of Opportunity Cost, History of Political Economy, 39 (1), pp. 97–119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vaughn, Karen I. (1980) John Locke: Economist and Social Scientist (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Viner, Jacob (1937) Studies in the Theory of International Trade (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers).Google Scholar
Wennerlind, Carl C. (2000) The Humean Paternity to Adam Smith's Theory of Money, History of Economic Ideas, 8 (1), pp. 77–97.Google Scholar
West, Edwin G. (1985) Richard Cantillon and Adam Smith: A Reappraisal, Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, 3, pp. 27–50.Google Scholar