Schools of thought

Rival answers, born in crises.

Each school began as an answer to a problem of its time. Most economists today describe their work by field and method rather than school, but the schools explain where today's arguments came from.

Era

0 of 16 schools explored

What the categories mean

Foundation: Ancestor of most later schools
Mainstream: Core of today's teaching and policy
Bridge: Began as a critique, partly absorbed into the mainstream
Heterodox: Outside the mainstream, often critical of it

1776–1870
Political economy
Industrial revolution, the first factories and free-trade fights. Economics is a branch of moral philosophy.
- Classical political economyFoundation· from 1776
- Marxian economicsHeterodox· from 1867
1870–1936
The marginal revolution
Value is redefined around choices at the margin. Maths enters economics. Critics ask what the models leave out.
1936–1970
The age of Keynes
The Great Depression and the Second World War. Governments take responsibility for jobs. Germany builds a rules-based alternative.
1970–2008
Expectations and markets
Stagflation breaks the post-war consensus. Expectations, central banks and markets take centre stage. New critics multiply.
2008–now
After the crash
No single new school. Instead: banks put back into macro models, many-household models, a boom in empirical work, and louder calls for pluralism from students.

Choose a school from the timeline to read it here.

Or start at the beginning: Classical political economy

Foundation: Ancestor of most later schools
Mainstream: Core of today's teaching and policy
Bridge: Began as a critique, partly absorbed into the mainstream
Heterodox: Outside the mainstream, often critical of it