Author Archives: F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Chapter 5 of The Wealth of Nations (available here) draws a distinction between “real” and “nominal” prices. To begin, the “nominal” price of any given good or service is its money price, which can change over time, since the value … Continue reading →

Picking up where we left off, Adam Smith concludes Chapter 4 of The Wealth of Nations (available here) thus: 4. Para. 18. Last but not least, Smith concludes Chapter 4 with the following words of warning or an apology of … Continue reading →

Which came first? Money or the division of labor? Chapter 4 of The Wealth of Nations is devoted to “The Origin and Use of Money,” and in the first part of this chapter (paragraphs 1 to 11, available here), Adam … Continue reading →

The Christmas season might be over and done with in most of the Anglo-American world, but it is just getting started in my beloved Island of Puerto Rico: Three Kings’ Day and “Octavitas” are still around the corner!

Chapter 3 of The Wealth of Nations (available here) is a veritable microcosm of Adam Smith’s genius, another timeless reason why his great work is still worth reading today, 250 years later. Here, Smith not only introduces one of his … Continue reading →

In his posthumously published treatise History of Economic Analysis (Oxford U Press, 1954; available here), Joseph Schumpeter made the following gratuitous and now oft-quoted claim: “… the fact is that The Wealth of Nations does not contain a single analytic … Continue reading →

Happy New Year! 2026 is the 250th anniversary of one of the most influential books to be published in the English language: Adam Smith’s Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. To commemorate this historic occasion, … Continue reading →

Happy New Year’s Eve! Above and beyond my teaching duties and my work on Adam Smith’s life and ideas (see my previous post), I also want to highlight a few of my many other sundry scholarly endeavors during this past … Continue reading →

Among other things, in 2025 I wrote or finished editing the following works on Adam Smith: 1. A New Discovery about Adam Smith in Geneva (with Alain Alcouffe, see below) 2. A Plea to Adam Smith Scholars (published in Adam … Continue reading →