Who gets what, and is it fair?

What the schools say

4 rival answers, oldest first.

• 1776Foundation

  Classical

  The founders. Adam Smith and David Ricardo asked why some nations get rich. Their answer: specialise, trade, and let prices coordinate. Almost every later school either builds on them or argues with them. Comparative advantage, their best idea, still opens every trade course.

  Read the school
• 1867Heterodox

  Marxian

  Marx asked where profit comes from. His answer: from paying workers less than the value they create. That makes capitalism dynamic but unequal and crisis-prone. His predictions of revolution failed, but his questions about power and distribution never went away.

  Read the school
• 1950Heterodox

  Post-Keynesian

  Keynes's radical heirs. The future is genuinely uncertain, banks create money when they lend, and stability itself breeds the next crisis (Minsky). They stressed financial fragility before 2008, but remain outside the mainstream.

  Read the school
• 1992Heterodox

  Feminist

  What happens if you count the work that isn't paid? Care, housework and bargaining inside households change the picture of the economy. Its biggest finding has gone mainstream: much of the gender pay gap opens up when women have children.

  Read the school

Still argued today

• Does raising the minimum wage cost jobs?One of the most studied questions in economics, and a clean case of theory meeting evidence.
• Will AI raise productivity, and who will gain?Directly relevant to business strategy and to the jobs graduates apply for.

Where it is studied

• B · History of thought: History of thought and methodology
• C · Quantitative: Mathematical and quantitative methods
• F · International: International economics
• H · Public: Public economics
• I · Health and education: Health, education and welfare
• J · Labour: Labour and demographic economics