Timeline of Economic Thought

This topic traces the main schools and thinkers in economic thought from the eighteenth century to the twenty-first century and explains how changing assumptions have shaped economic policy. It highlights Adam Smith's foundations for laissez-faire and the invisible hand, the nineteenth-century focus on utility, the margin and Say's law, and later developments such as Marx, Keynes, monetarism/new classical ideas, behavioural economics and the circular economy. Understanding this timeline helps explain why economists use different models and why policy recommendations differ across time and places.