Joseph Schumpeter and John Maynard Keynes were two of the most admired economists of their time. Both men were born in 1883; Schumpeter died four years after his rival, in 1950. Both changed the way a generation thought. Why, then, did Keynes give his name to an influential school of economics, while Schumpeter, though still admired, is little read?

Of these two figures, Schumpeter was more conservative. When Forbes celebrated the centenary of both in 1983, it asserted “Schumpeter, not Keynes, provided the best guide to the ... change engulfing the modern world”; Business Week acknowledged the 50th anniversary of Schumpeter’s death by proclaiming him “America’s hottest economist”.