High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! A Robinson Crusoe Economy is a simple framework to study trade in economics. It assumes an economy with one consumer, one producer and two goods. The title "Robinson Crusoe" is a reference to the novel of the same name authored by Daniel Defoe in 1719. The story is that of a castaway who spent 28 years on an uninhabited island near Trinidad, thus appropriate to describe an uncomplicated economic structure with only one actor.