LYCOS RETRIEVER 
David Ricardo
built 630 days ago
David Ricardo was a British economist, born 1772 into a wealthy merchant banker family in London. At the age of fourteen he entered his father's business, but in 1793 he set up on his own as a stockbroker. He was very successful and made a fortune on the Stock Exchange and was able to retire at the age of fourty-two and concentrate on his science work, his writings, and his politics. He started reading Adam Smith and beacme interested in more theoretical issues. Ricardo developed two theories that are still important in economic thinking to-day:
Source:
A little over twenty years after the death of David Ricardo, the Corn Laws were abolished (1846), and the industrial capitalists eventually broke the power of landlords and replaced them. Consequently, the dismal future which Ricardo had envisioned did not come to pass. One of Ricardo's main contributions to economic theory was his concept that rent rises from differences in the quality of land. This situation was a direct refutation of the physiocrats' concept that rent rose from the bounty of nature.
Source:
David Ricardo, born in London of parents recently emigrated from Amsterdam, where he was educated as a youth in yeshivas. He returned to London and made a large fortune as a stockbroker, and eventually was elected to Parliament; but he ... enjoyed reading about economics. He was ultimately inspired by Smith’s The Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, and, using his background in the stock market and his natural incisive ability, actively disagreed with the mercantilist views on gold accumulation and the pricing of gold. He eventually took on some of Smith’s inconsistencies, and in the process developed the role of comparative advantage in international trade. He is one of the early describers of what has become known as “Ricardian equivalence” - the condition that real interest rates are influenced by government spending, but not necessarily by the way the government finances that spending (via borrowing or taxation). His contributions to the economics of rent, monetary theory, and the theory of value influenced economists of his day and since.
Source:
David Ricardo had a varied upbringing. He was born in 1772 and was the third of 17 children. David Ricardo's family was descended from Iberian Jews who had fled to Holland during a wave of persecutions in the early 18th Century. His parents were very successful and his father was a wealthy merchant banker. They lived at first in the Netherlands and then moved to London. Ricardo himself had little formal education (obviously not a modern role model!) and went to work for his father at the age of 14.
Source:
David Ricardo, 1772-1823, was born in London, the third son of a Portuguese Jewish family that had moved to London from Amsterdam. After attending school in London, Ricardo was sent to Amsterdam for two years, probably to continue his education at the Talmud Tora. On his return to London he was educated under private instruction until his father took him into his business on the Stock Exchange. He showed great talent on the Stock Exchange and when his marriage to Priscilla Wilkinson caused a rift with his family and a severance from the family business, many members of the Stock Exchange promised him their support. Ricardo became a very successful contractor, bidding on behalf of the Stock Exchange for the successive government loans issued to finance the Napoleonic War. This culminated in a final loan of £36 million four days before the battle of Waterloo.
Source:
David Ricardo was born in 1772 England to a Jewish banker. He started working at age fourteen for his father, learning much about financial issues. A true businessman, he was wealthy and the head of his own business by the time he was in his twenties. Even though he became incredibly wealthy, he had ignored Smith’s Wealth of Nations until, while on vacation in Bath, England, he finally read it out of boredom. It turned out that their theories weren’t too far apart. While Smith’s was optimistic, Ricardo’s was considered pessimistic and complex.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
David Ricardo