Jane Austen and the economic way of thinking

Jane Austen was an Enlightenment-era philosopher who engaged in the economic way of thinking. She shared the moral sentiments philosophy of Adam Smith, and the two authors act as a bridge to understanding the other's perspective on a changing world. Austen's economic way of thinking can be understood by analysing three major issues in her novels: poverty, human capital accumulation, and the marriage market. She also wrote extensively on trade-offs, opportunity costs, incentives, unintended consequences, and other concepts familiar to modern economists. As a student of human behaviour, Austen's novels provide readers with a new approach to the economic way of thinking.