Several key people such as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus, and Karl Marx influenced the field of economics. If the development of economics were put on a timeline, it started around 1730 with Adam Smith and the Physiocratic School of Economic Theory with the belief that a nation's wealth was correlated with the value of land agriculture. Then in the 1800s, Ricardo and Malthus took the lead in the scene of economics. Both of their theories changed the field of economics in their time and even coined the unfortunate nickname for economics as the "dismal science." Both Ricardo and Malthus went through experiences early in their lives that would lead them to economics, formed influential economic philosophies with similarities and differences, and impacted views today.
David Ricardo was born in London on April 19, 1772, and was one of seventeen children. When he was only fourteen years old, he started to work under his father's tutelage in his business. Here in the London Stock Exchange marked the place where Ricardo would not only build his fortune and succeed even more than his father, but also where he would obtain his basic grasp of economics. In 1793, he decided to marry a woman named Priscilla Wilkinson who was a Quaker; his decision caused a schism between his Jewish family and him. This rift led him to break off from his father and become an independent broker in the London Stock Exchange. .
After making his fortune as a broker, Ricardo dedicated his time to other fields such as chemistry, literature, and mathematics. During this time, he came across a work of Adam Smith called The Wealth of Nations. Adam Smith's work inspired him to study economics for ten years and write many of his own works. His very first one, titled The High Price of Bullion, a Proof of the Depreciation of Bank Notes, discussed the relationship between the volume of bank notes and price levels regarding the Bank of England.
