Güiraldes, Ricardo, 1886-1927, Argentine writer. He spent his boyhood on a ranch where he learned the ways of the gauchos, later traveling to Europe. In his novels and short stories he applied postmodernist techniques to Argentine regional themes. His masterpiece, Don Segundo Sombra (1926, tr. Shadows in the Pampas, 1935), in part autobiographical, captured the heroic spirit of the gaucho amid exquisite descriptions of the pampas.

Lagos Escobar, Ricardo, 1938-, Chilean political leader. A lawyer and economist, he was an academic and served as secretary-general of the Univ. of Chile under President Allende, whom Lagos supported. After Allende's overthrow, Lagos taught abroad and was a UN economist (1978-84) in Chile. In the early 1980s he helped found the Alliance for Democracy and led it in 1983-84, becoming one of Chile's leading socialists and by 1988 a bluntly outspoken critic of President Pinochet, who had overthrown Allende. Lagos served as minister of education (1990-94) and public works (1994-99) after democracy was restored. The Socialist party candidate for president in 1999, he won the presidency after a runoff, becoming the first socialist to win it since Allende. As president (2000-2006) Lagos worked to liberalize Chilean society, Civilian control over the military and other constitutional reforms were passed, and human-rights offenses and other cases against Pinochet were pursued in the courts.

Ricardo, David, 1772-1823, British economist, of Dutch-Jewish parentage. At the age of 20 he entered business as a stockbroker and was so skillful in the management of his affairs that within five years he had amassed a huge fortune. He then turned much of his attention to scientific topics, and in 1799, after reading Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, began to study political economy. However, 10 years elapsed before the appearance of his first writings on the subject, a series of letters to the Morning Chronicle. A number of pamphlets and tracts followed, in turn succeeded by Ricardo's major work, The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817). In that book he presented most of his important theories, especially those concerned with the determination of wages and value. For the problem of wages he proposed the "iron law of wages," according to which wages tend to stabilize around the subsistence level. Any rise in wage rates above subsistence will cause the working population to increase to the point that heightened competition among the glut of laborers will merely cause their wages to fall back to the subsistence level. As far as value was concerned, Ricardo stated that the value of almost any good was, essentially, a function of the labor needed to produce it. According to his labor theory of value, a clock costing $100 required 10 times as much labor for its production as did a pair of shoes costing $10. Ricardo was also concerned with the subject of international trade, and for that he developed the theory of comparative advantage, still widely accepted among economists. In a now classic illustration, Ricardo explained how it was advantageous for England to produce cloth and Portugal to produce wine, as long as both countries traded freely with each other, even though Portugal might have produced both wine and cloth at a lower cost than England did. Although his publications were often turgidly written, with little of the insight and breadth of knowledge that characterized Adam Smith's work, Ricardo was an enormously influential economic thinker. His rigidly deductive and scientific method of analysis served as a model for subsequent work in economics.

Palma, Ricardo, 1833-1919, Peruvian scholar and author. Palma abandoned an active early career as a naval officer, journalist, and politician to achieve note as a historian with a book on the Inquisition in Lima (1863). After the War of the Pacific (1879-84) he was in charge of rebuilding the destroyed national library. He made it one of the finest libraries in South America and served as its director for many years. Palma, however, won enduring fame and a unique place in Spanish American letters as the creator of a new genre, the tradición, or historical anecdote. Part fiction and part historical reconstruction, these sketches and stories about colonial Peru are permeated by wit, love of the past, and all-encompassing imagination. They were published in a long series of volumes, Tradiciones peruanas (1872-1910); some have been translated into English under the title The Knights of the Cape (ed. by Harriet de Onís, 1945).

Martinelli, Ricardo 1952-, Panamanian business executive and political leader. The son of Italian immigrants, he became the head of a successful supermarket chain and a multimillionaire; he also has investments in banking, real estate, and other businesses. Martinelli served in Panama's government as director of social security (1994-96) and minister of canal affairs and chairman of the Panama Canal Authority board (1998-2003), and in 1998 he founded the conservative Democratic Change party. He first ran for president in 2004, coming in fourth, but five years later he was elected to the office, having used his fortune to finance his campaign.

(born , April 18/19, 1772, London, Eng.—died Sept. 11, 1823, Gatcombe Park, Gloucestershire) British economist. The son of a Dutch Jew, he followed his father into the London stock exchange, where he made a fortune before turning to the study of political economy, in which he was influenced by the writings of Adam Smith. His writings in support of a metal currency standard were influential. In his major work, The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817), he examined the movement of wages and the determination of value, asserting that the domestic values of commodities were largely determined by the labour required for their production. His Iron Law of Wages stated that attempts to improve the real income of workers were futile and that wages tended to stabilize at subsistence level. Though many of his ideas are obsolete, he was a major figure in the development of classical economics and is credited as the first person to systematize economics.

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(born , April 18/19, 1772, London, Eng.—died Sept. 11, 1823, Gatcombe Park, Gloucestershire) British economist. The son of a Dutch Jew, he followed his father into the London stock exchange, where he made a fortune before turning to the study of political economy, in which he was influenced by the writings of Adam Smith. His writings in support of a metal currency standard were influential. In his major work, The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817), he examined the movement of wages and the determination of value, asserting that the domestic values of commodities were largely determined by the labour required for their production. His Iron Law of Wages stated that attempts to improve the real income of workers were futile and that wages tended to stabilize at subsistence level. Though many of his ideas are obsolete, he was a major figure in the development of classical economics and is credited as the first person to systematize economics.

Learn more about Ricardo, David with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Ricardo is the Portuguese and Spanish cognate of the name Richard.

People with the first name Ricardo

• Ricardo Arona, Brazilian mixed martial artist
• Ricardo de Araújo Pereira, Portuguese comedian
• Ricardo Arjona, Guatemalan satirical singer
• Ricardo Busquets, Puerto Rican swimmer
• Ricardo Carvalho, Portuguese football (soccer) defender
• Ricardo Cortez, Austrian actor
• Ricardo Fortaleza, Filipino-Australian boxer
• Ricardo Hausmann, Venezuelan politician and professor at Harvard
• Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite, better known as Kaká, Brazilian football (soccer) midfielder
• Ricardo Lagos, Chilean socialist politician and former president
• Ricardo Larrivée, French Canadian TV and radio food presenter and writer
• Ricardo López Felipe, Spanish football (soccer) goalkeeper
• Ricardo Montalbán, Mexican actor
• Ricardo Nascimento, Portuguese football (soccer) midfielder
• Ricardo Palma, Peruvian author
• Ricardo Pereira, Portuguese football (soccer) goalkeeper
• Ricardo Pinto (footballer), Brazilian retired football (soccer) goalkeeper
• Ricardo Quaresma, Portuguese football (soccer) winger
• Ricardo Rosset, Brazilian racing driver
• Ricardo Sánchez, Spanish water polo player
• Ricardo Santos, Brazilian beach volleyball player
• Ricardo Senn, Argentine cyclist
• Ricardo Vera, Uruguayan long-distance runner
• Ricardo Villalobos, Chilean electronic musician

People with the last name Ricardo

• David Ricardo, British economist
• Ricky Ricardo, fictional character on the I Love Lucy TV show
• Harry Ricardo, British motor engineer who established Ricardo Consulting Engineers

Others

• Richard Møller Nielsen, nicknamed Ricardo, Danish football manager whose team won the Euro 1992
• Ricardo plc, UK based engineering company