Economics · Curated list

Schools of thought: the 20 most written about

Marxism, Austrian school of economics, Keynesian economics and 17 more, ranked by how much of the world has written about each one.

Entries: 20
Photographed: 1
Fetched: 2026-09-25

Schools of thought, ranked

Most written-about first. Each description summarises the school's Wikipedia article, which its name links to.

1

Marxism

Political philosophy

A political philosophy and way of analysing society and economics that reads historical development in dialectical materialist terms, as historical materialism, to understand social conflict and class relations. Arising from the work of the 19th-century German philosophers Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, it sees class struggle as the main force driving historical change.

Wikidata · Photo: Photo of Karl Marx by Friedrich Karl Wunder Photo of Friedrich Engels by George Lester, Public domain
2

Austrian school of economics

School of economic thought

A heterodox school of economic thought that insists on methodological individualism, the idea that social phenomena come chiefly from what individuals, with their self-interest, want and do. Its theorists hold that economic theory should be derived only from basic axioms of human action, which they call praxeology, and not mainly from statistics.

Wikidata
3

Keynesian economics

Group of macroeconomic theories

A family of macroeconomic theories and models describing the strong effect of total spending in an economy, aggregate demand, on inflation and on output. Keynesians hold that aggregate demand need not match what the economy can produce.

Wikidata
4

Classical economics

School of thought in economics

A school of political economy, also called classical political economy, that flourished mostly in Britain in the late 18th and early-to-mid 19th century. It takes in both the Ricardian and the Smithian schools.

Wikidata
5

Behavioral economics

Factors influencing economic decisions

The study of the psychological factors behind the decisions of institutions and individuals, and of how those decisions depart from what traditional economic theory predicts.

Wikidata
6

Economic liberalism

Political and economic ideology

A political and economic ideology favouring a market economy built on individualism and on private ownership of the means of production. Adam Smith is counted among its first main writers, and his work is generally taken to express, in economics, the liberalism of the 19th century, until the Great Depression and the rise of Keynesianism in the 20th.

Wikidata
7

Neoclassical economics

Approach to economics

An approach to economics that sees the supply and demand model as driving how goods and services are produced, consumed and valued (priced). On this view, a good's or service's value is set by a hypothetical maximising: of utility by individuals limited by their income, and of profits by firms that face production costs and use the information and factors of production at hand.

Wikidata
8

Chicago school of economics

School of economic thought

A neoclassical school of economic thought linked with the faculty of the University of Chicago, some of whom built and popularised its principles. George Stigler and Milton Friedman are seen as its leading scholars.

Wikidata
9

Marxian economics

School of economic thought

A school of political economy outside the mainstream, also called the Marxian school, which grows out of Karl Marx's critique of political economy.

Wikidata
10

Ecological economics

Interdependence of human economies and natural ecosystems

Also called bioeconomics, ecolonomy, eco-economics or ecol-econ, a field of academic research, both transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary, on how human economies and natural ecosystems depend on each other and evolve together, over time and across space. By treating the economy as a subsystem of the Earth's larger ecosystem, and by stressing the preservation of natural capital, it sets itself apart from environmental economics, the mainstream economic analysis of the environment.

Wikidata
11

Institutional economics

Economics that focuses on institutions

A school that studies how institutions and the process of evolution shape economic behaviour. It began with Thorstein Veblen's instinct-based dichotomy between technology on one side and the "ceremonial" sphere of society on the other.

Wikidata
12

Supply-side economics

Macroeconomic theory

A macroeconomic theory holding that economic growth is best encouraged by cutting taxes, reducing regulation and allowing free trade. According to it, consumers gain from more goods and services at lower prices, and more people find work.

Wikidata
13

Modern Monetary Theory

Macroeconomic theory

Also called Modern Money Theory, or MMT, a macroeconomic theory about the part fiscal and monetary policy play for sovereign governments that issue and borrow government debt in their own currency.

Wikidata
14

New Keynesian economics

School of macroeconomics

A school of macroeconomics that seeks to give Keynesian economics microeconomic foundations. It grew partly in answer to criticisms of Keynesian macroeconomics from followers of new classical macroeconomics.

Wikidata
15

Post-Keynesian economics

School of economic thought

A school of economic thought that starts from John Maynard Keynes's The General Theory, and was developed further under the strong influence of Michał Kalecki, Joan Robinson, Nicholas Kaldor, Sidney Weintraub, Paul Davidson, Piero Sraffa, Jan Kregel, Basil J Moore, Marc Lavoie and Tracy Mott. The historian Robert Skidelsky argues that it has stayed truest to the spirit of Keynes's original work.

Wikidata
16

Historical school of economics

Approach to academic economics

Properly the German historical school of economics, an approach to academic economics and public administration that arose in Germany in the 19th century and held sway there well into the 20th. Its professors compiled huge economic histories of Europe and Germany.

Wikidata
17

Saint-Simonianism

French political, religious and social movement

A movement in France, at once political, religious and social, in the first half of the 19th century, drawing on the thought of Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon.

Wikidata
18

New institutional economics

Economic perspective

Usually shortened to NIE, a perspective that tries to extend economics by concentrating on the institutions underlying economic activity, and by analysis going beyond earlier institutional and neoclassical economics.

Wikidata
19

Manchester Liberalism

School of economic thought

Social, political and economic movements that arose in 19th-century Manchester. Led by John Bright and Richard Cobden, they argued, and were widely heard, that free trade would make society fairer by putting essential goods within everyone's reach.

Wikidata
20

Stockholm School

School of economic thought (1930s)

A school of economic thought: a loosely organised group of Swedish economists who worked together in Stockholm, Sweden, mostly in the 1930s.

Wikidata

How this list was made

Every Wikidata item that is a school of economic thought, or a kind of one, and that has its own English Wikipedia article, ranked by the number of Wikimedia sites with a page about it — Wikipedia's language editions, mostly, and sister projects such as Wikiquote. That counts how many communities independently thought it worth describing, and nobody can buy a place on it. The top 20 are shown.

Fetched from Wikidata on 2026-09-25. Each description is this site's summary of the entry's Wikipedia article, which its name links to: the wording is ours, the facts are Wikipedia's, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. To correct an entry, correct it there; the next refresh carries the change.

One practical note: staying online

If you are reading this on the way somewhere: Computatus eSIM sells prepaid data eSIMs for 190 countries, installed by QR code before you leave, so maps, tickets and messages work without a roaming bill.

See plans for the most visited destinations from $1.79

The destinations travellers ask about most, with the cheapest plan for each, as exported 2026-07-31.
Country	Cheapest plan	Price	Order
United States	1GB per day	$2.33	Get it →
France	2GB per day	$2.15	Get it →
Italy	2GB per day	$1.81	Get it →
United Kingdom	2GB per day	$1.81	Get it →
Germany	2GB per day	$1.81	Get it →
Canada	1GB per day	$2.47	Get it →
India	1GB per day	$3.26	Get it →
Australia	1GB per day	$1.79	Get it →

See all Computatus eSIM plans →

A commission on plans bought through these links is what pays for this site. Nothing above depends on it: every entry is chosen and ranked before any price is looked up.

Schools of thought: the 20 most written about

Schools of thought, ranked

How this list was made

More in Economics

One practical note: staying online