Richard Cantillon

Richard Cantillon

Richard Cantillon (French: [kɑ̃tijɔ̃]; 1680s – May 1734) was an Irish-French economist and author of Essai Sur La Nature Du Commerce En Général (Essay on the Nature of Trade in General), a book considered by William Stanley Jevons to be the "cradle of political economy". Although little information exists on Cantillon's life, it is known that he became a successful banker and merchant at an early age. His success was largely derived from the political and business connections he made through his family and through an early employer, James Brydges. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Richard Cantillon has received more than 484,985 page views. His biography is available in 27 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 22 in 2019). Richard Cantillon is the 96th most popular economist (up from 98th in 2019), the 46th most popular biography from Ireland (up from 52nd in 2019) and the most popular Irish Economist.

Richard Cantillon is most famous for his theory of the "circular flow of wealth." Cantillon theorized that money moves in a circular fashion and that the use of money is not limited to a single transaction.