Adam biography short smith

Adam smith, education

Prescriptive and policy. Adam Smith baptised 16 June [ O. The latter, often abbreviated as The Wealth of Nations , is considered his magnum opus and the first modern work that treats economics as a comprehensive system and an academic discipline. Smith refuses to explain the distribution of wealth and power in terms of God's will and instead appeals to natural, political, social, economic, legal, environmental and technological factors and the interactions among them.

Among other economic theories, the work introduced Smith's idea of absolute advantage. Smith studied social philosophy at the University of Glasgow and at Balliol College, Oxford , where he was one of the first students to benefit from scholarships set up by fellow Scot John Snell. After graduating, he delivered a successful series of public lectures at the University of Edinburgh , [ 7 ] leading him to collaborate with David Hume during the Scottish Enlightenment.

Smith obtained a professorship at Glasgow, teaching moral philosophy and during this time, wrote and published The Theory of Moral Sentiments. In his later life, he took a tutoring position that allowed him to travel throughout Europe, where he met other intellectual leaders of his day. As a reaction to the common policy of protecting national markets and merchants through minimizing imports and maximizing exports, what came to be known as mercantilism , Smith laid the foundations of classical free market economic theory.

The Wealth of Nations was a precursor to the modern academic discipline of economics. In this and other works, he developed the concept of division of labour and expounded upon how rational self-interest and competition can lead to economic prosperity. Smith was controversial in his day and his general approach and writing style were often satirised by writers such as Horace Walpole.

Adam smith biography pdf

Smith was born in Kirkcaldy , in Fife , Scotland. His father, Adam Smith senior, was a Scottish Writer to the Signet senior solicitor , advocate and prosecutor judge advocate and also served as comptroller of the customs in Kirkcaldy. Two months before Smith was born, his father died, leaving his mother a widow.