Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de l'Aulne, commonly known as Turgot, was a French economist and statesman. Sometimes considered a physiocrat, he is today best remembered as an early advocate for economic liberalism. He is thought to have been the first political economist to have postulated something like the law of diminishing marginal returns in agriculture.

Physiocracy is an economic theory developed by a group of 18th-century Age of Enlightenment French economists who believed that the wealth of nations derived solely from the value of "land agriculture" or "land development" and that agricultural products should be highly priced. Their theories originated in France and were most popular during the second half of the 18th century. Physiocracy became one of the first well-developed theories of economics.