42 Facts About Richard Cantillon

Richard Cantillon was an Irish-French economist and author of Essai Sur La Nature Du Commerce En General, a book considered by William Stanley Jevons to be the "cradle of political economy".

Richard Cantillon's success was largely derived from the political and business connections he made through his family and through an early employer, James Brydges.

Richard Cantillon's work was translated into Spanish by Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, probably in the late 1770s, and considered essential reading for political economy.

Richard Cantillon was influenced by his experiences as a banker, and especially by the speculative bubble of John Law's Mississippi Company.

Richard Cantillon was heavily influenced by prior economists, especially William Petty.

Richard Cantillon's Essai had significant influence on the early development of political economy, including the works of Adam Smith, Anne Turgot, Jean-Baptiste Say, Frederic Bastiat and Francois Quesnay.

Richard Cantillon was son to land-owner Richard Cantillon of Ballyheigue.

Sometime in the middle of the first decade of the 18th century Richard Cantillon moved to France, where he attained French citizenship.

Richard Cantillon remained in Spain until 1714, cultivating a number of business and political connections, before returning to Paris.

Richard Cantillon then became involved in the banking industry working for a cousin, who at that time was lead-correspondent of the Parisian branch of a family bank.

Two years later, thanks in large part to financial backing by James Brydges, Richard Cantillon bought his cousin out and attained ownership of the bank.

In 1719, Richard Cantillon left Paris for Amsterdam, returning briefly in early 1720.

Lending in Paris, Richard Cantillon had outlying debt repaid to him in London and Amsterdam.

In, his residence in London was burned to the ground, and it is generally assumed that Richard Cantillon died in the fire.

However, Richard Cantillon's treatise was largely neglected during the 19th century.

Essai is considered the first complete treatise on economic theory, and Richard Cantillon has been called the "father of enterprise economics".

One of the greatest influences on Richard Cantillon's writing was English economist William Petty and his 1662 tract Treatise on Taxes.

Apart from Petty, other possible influences on Richard Cantillon include John Locke, Cicero, Livy, Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger, Charles Davenant, Edmond Halley, Isaac Newton, Sebastien Le Prestre de Vauban, and Jean Boisard.

Richard Cantillon's Essai is written using a distinctive causal methodology, separating Richard Cantillon from his mercantilist predecessors.

Economist Murray Rothbard credits Richard Cantillon with being one of the first theorists to isolate economic phenomena with simple models, where otherwise-uncontrollable variables can be fixed.

Richard Cantillon made frequent use of the concept of ceteris paribus throughout Essai in an attempt to neglect independent variables.

Differences between prior mercantilists and Richard Cantillon arise early in Essai, regarding the origins of wealth and price formation on the market.

Richard Cantillon held that market prices are not immediately decided by intrinsic value, but are derived from supply and demand.

Richard Cantillon considered market prices to be derived by comparing supply, the quantity of a particular good in a particular market, to demand, the quantity of money brought to be exchanged.

In Essai, Richard Cantillon provided an advanced version of John Locke's quantity theory of money, focusing on relative inflation and the velocity of money.

Richard Cantillon suggested that inflation occurs gradually and that the new supply of money has a localised effect on inflation, effectively originating the concept of non-neutral money.

Richard Cantillon considered changes in the velocity of money influential on prices, although not to the same degree as changes in the quantity of money.

Richard Cantillon considered fiduciary media a useful tool to abate the downward pressure that hoarding of specie has on the velocity of money.

Richard Cantillon suggested that in countries with a high quantity of money in circulation, prices will increase and therefore become less competitive in relation to countries where there is a relative scarcity of money.

However, Richard Cantillon did not believe that international markets tended toward equilibrium, and instead suggested that government hoard specie to avoid rising prices and falling competitiveness.

Richard Cantillon believed that interest originates from the need of borrowers for capital and from the fear of loss of the lenders, meaning that borrowers have to recompense lenders for the risk of the possible insolvency of the debtor.

Entrepreneurs, according to Richard Cantillon, are non-fixed income earners who pay known costs of production but earn uncertain incomes, due to the speculative nature of pandering to an unknown demand for their product.

Furthermore, unlike later theories of entrepreneurship which saw the entrepreneur as a disruptive force, Richard Cantillon anticipated the belief that the entrepreneur brought equilibrium to a market by correctly predicting consumer preferences.

The development of spatial economics is usually ascribed to German economist Johann Heinrich von Thunen; however, Richard Cantillon addressed spatial economics nearly a century earlier.

For example, Richard Cantillon believed markets were designed as they were to decrease costs to both merchants and villagers in terms of time and transportation.

Apart from originating theories on the entrepreneur and spatial economics, Richard Cantillon provided a dedicated theory on population growth.

Unlike William Petty, who believed there always existed a considerable amount of unused land and economic opportunity to support economic growth, Richard Cantillon theorised that population grows only as long as there are economic opportunities present.

Specifically, Richard Cantillon cited three determining variables for population size: natural resources, technology, and culture.

Richard Cantillon was a major influence on physiocrat Francois Quesnay, who has probably had access to his work through the marquis de Mirabeau, who possessed a manuscript of the Essai since 1740.

Many of Quesnay's economic beliefs were elucidated previously in the Essai, but Quesnay did reject a number of Richard Cantillon's premises, including the scarcity of land and Richard Cantillon's population theory.

Nevertheless, Richard Cantillon was considered the "father of physiocracy" by Henry Higgs, due to his influence on Quesnay.

Richard Cantillon is one of the few economists cited by Adam Smith, who directly borrows Richard Cantillon's subsistence theory of wages.