Rachel Reeves,  a former Bank of England economist, and the UK Labour Party’s shadow chancellor, argues that the standard lineup of great economists including Adam Smith,  author of market’s invisible hand  or Alfred Marshall, whose supply and demand curves young economists still learn to draw, Milton Freeman, champion of monetarism, is incomplete.

The Women Who Made Modern Economics aims to correct that by revealing the thinkers and campaigners who shaped the discipline “ in more ways than is recognised”. These women and their stories should act as role models increasing the diversity of future economists.

Harriet Martineau, in the 1800s popularized Smith’s ideas, pushing free trade to a mass audience using fictional stories including one called “ Berkeley the Banker” or Mary Paley Marshall, whose ideas about why economic clusters exist were the basis of a book co-authored with her husband Alfred, or Anna Schwartz, who wrote A Monetary History of the United States with Milton Friedman. Survey evidence does suggest that female economists are more sympathetic to increased environmental protection, more comfortable with government intervention, and more accepting of the idea that men and women have unequal opportunities. Beatrice Ween, who co-founded the London School of Economics and is one of Reeves’ subjects. Took from, her experience visiting the Lancashire mills in the 1880s that “destitution is a disease of society itself”, and warned that overemphasising incentives in the welfare system would punish those who could not work. Joan Robinson, an economist at the University of Cambridge in the 20^th century, argued for a minimum wage – otherwise employers would push wages too low.

Martineau was a vocal critic of government-imposed trade restrictions, while Schwartz was an ardent free marketeer. Dambisa Moyo who argues that poor countries would do better if they were subject to the discipline of free-market capitalism and not coddled by aid, while Sakiko Fukuda-Farr warns that free markets left to their own devices merely entrench inequality.

She argues that a world in which women were in charge would be much better than the one we have. She criticizes Nobel winner Elinor Ostrom, who argued that local management of public resources can work well in the real world, understating the importance of global climate agreements.

“The power of predict , prepare and protect in economics was never clearer to me than during Labour’s battle for a windfall tax on energy and gas companies. The Women Who Made Modern Economics  is clearly intended to demonstrate that Reeves is a serious, thoughtful contender to run Britain’s economy and does the valuable job of challenging readers’ preconceptions of what an economist is.  As the potential next Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the first female Chancellor after 800 years, Reeves outlines her vision for the future of the economy: a future in which economic security is restored, family finances are boosted, and the economy grows to make every part of Britain better off.

Most importantly this book is dedicated to the women who have gone before and to those who will change our future.

 The Women Who Made Modern Economics by Rachel Reeves, Basic Books £20, 288 pages.