David Ricardo
Political economist and unbounded innovator
Introduction
While Adam Smith is regarded as the father of classical economics, the science of economics would not have developed as it did without the contributions of David Ricardo. Fittingly, it was a chance reading of Smith’s magnum opus, Wealth of Nations (1776), that inspired Ricardo to pursue the study of economics.1 From there, Ricardo began to make waves in the British political economics sphere. He tackled controversial topics, from the Bank Restriction Act to the Corn Laws, and played a key role in the development of theories pertaining to rent, wages, and profits.
The ideas put forth by Ricardo shaped the discipline of classical economics and have been highly influential to the thinkers who came after him – both those who agreed and disagreed with him. While many of his innovations have been adapted or replaced by other models, there is no doubt that Ricardo’s work was foundational.
It appears to me that one great cause of our difference in opinion on subjects which we often discuss is that you have always in mind the immediate and temporary effects of particular changes, whereas I put these effects quite aside, and fix my whole attention on the long-term effects that will result from them.
– David Ricardo
About the Authors
Dan Pilat
Dan is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. Dan has a background in organizational decision making, with a BComm in Decision & Information Systems from McGill University. He has worked on enterprise-level behavioral architecture at TD Securities and BMO Capital Markets, where he advised management on the implementation of systems processing billions of dollars per week. Driven by an appetite for the latest in technology, Dan created a course on business intelligence and lectured at McGill University, and has applied behavioral science to topics such as augmented and virtual reality.
Dr. Sekoul Krastev
Dr. Sekoul Krastev is a decision scientist and Co-Founder of The Decision Lab, one of the world's leading behavioral science consultancies. His team works with large organizations—Fortune 500 companies, governments, foundations and supernationals—to apply behavioral science and decision theory for social good. He holds a PhD in neuroscience from McGill University and is currently a visiting scholar at NYU. His work has been featured in academic journals as well as in The New York Times, Forbes, and Bloomberg. He is also the author of Intention (Wiley, 2024), a bestselling book on the science of human agency. Before founding The Decision Lab, he worked at the Boston Consulting Group and Google.
