Luigi Einaudi's economics of liberalism

Abstract

The paper delineates a profile of Luigi Einaudi as an economist and answers to the question: what kind of economist was Einaudi?. It describes the major trends of classical and neoclassical economic thought that influenced his background and focuses on his conception of economic science: method and vision, fields of application (from the Italian economy to the the Great Crisis) and his theory of economic policy ( Buongoverno ). The paper maintains that Einaudi possessed the qualities of the great economists of the past but his understatement in the manner of presenting his positions and his style of argument have overshadowed the great economist he was.