The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty: Together With the Observations upon the Bills of Mortality/Two Volumes in One

Among the most important contributions to economics made before Adam Smith are the works of William Petty collected in this standard edition with a valuable introudction by the editor, Charles H. Hull. It includes A Treatise on Taxes and Contributions (1662)--the only work pubished in his lifetime; Political Arithmetic (completed in 1676?); Political Anatomy of Ireland (1672); Quantulumcunque Concerning Money (1682) and Verbum Sapienti (1664). Among Petty's original and prescient ideas are public works for unemployment; a theory of benefit taxation in proportion to property held; a capitalization of taxation concept; a theory of rent and differential rent anticipating Adam Smith; a labor theory of value and a cost-of-production theory; a vague concept of opportunity cost; a theory of surplus value anticipating Karl Marx, and; a grasp of the concept of the velocity of the circulation of money. Petty's immediate followers definitively established the science of demography and economic statistics; his conceptual framework, adopted by Cantillon, influenced Quesnay and thereby both Adam Smith and David Ricardo. Petty's relevance for the development of classical political economy was emphasized by Karl Marx who considered Petty the "founder." "On both levels ('political arithmetic' and 'political anatomy'), his influence on subsequent developments was decisive." The New Palgrave