The Wealth of Nations at 250 : Understanding Prosperity and Development in the Modern World

What determines the wealth of nations? Two hundred and fifty years after Adam Smith first posed this question, leading economists and economic historians revisit his answers using modern evidence. Accessible, wide-ranging, and lively, this volume speaks to scholars, students, and the informed general reader. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith set out a system for understanding why some societies prosper and others do not, and in the process founded the discipline of economics. In the 250 years since its publication, the world has transformed beyond recognition. Smith has also been reduced in the collective imagination to little more than a byword for the free market. The Wealth of Nations at 250 brings together today's most influential economists and economic historians to ask where Smith's system still holds, and where it needs new machinery. The task of rethinking what causes prosperity demands a return to the breadth of Smith's original vision, incorporating the cultural, institutional, and political foundations as well as the economic. Written in the spirit of Smith's own clarity, the book speaks to anyone interested in how and why nations prosper. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.