David Ricardo

David Ricardo was a British economist and stockbroker whose work helped shape classical political economy. Born in London to a Sephardic Jewish family, he was sent as a boy to a Jewish school in Amsterdam for about two years before returning to England and entering his father's stock-exchange business as a teenager, where he amassed a substantial fortune before turning to economic theory. His 1817 book, On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, set out ideas on rent, wages, value, and international trade, including the theory now known as comparative advantage. In 1819 he purchased a seat in the House of Commons, representing Portarlington, and during his parliamentary years divided his time between his country estate and a London house on Upper Brook Street. He retired principally to Gatcombe Park in Gloucestershire, where he died in 1823.