The Wealth of Nations offers one of the world's first connected accounts of what builds nations' wealth, and has become a fundamental work in classical economics.

It influenced a number of authors and economists, as well as governments and organizations. Alexander Hamilton was influenced in part by The Wealth of Nations to write his Report on Manufactures, in which he argued against many of Smith's policies. Interestingly, Hamilton based much of this report on the ideas of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, and it was, in part, Colbert's ideas that Smith responded to with The Wealth of Nations. Many other authors were influenced by the book and used it as a starting point in their own work, including Jean-Baptiste Say, David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus and, later, Ludwig von Mises.

The Wealth of Nations was the product of seventeen years of notes and earlier studies, as well as an observation of conversation among economists of the time concerning economic and societal conditions during the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and it took Smith some ten years to produce. It provided the foundation for economists, politicians, mathematicians, and thinkers of all fields to build upon. Irrespective of historical influence, The Wealth of Nations represented a clear paradigm shift in the field of economics, comparable to what Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason was for philosophy.