Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Economic Scientist, Economic and Social Reformer

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Irving Fisher

Part of the book series: Great Thinkers in Economics ((GTE))

  • 641 Accesses

Abstract

Economic Scientist, Economic and Social Reformer: An overview of the career and contributions of Irving Fisher (1867–1947) of Yale, an outstanding scientific economist whose reputation within the discipline of economics has recovered from his varied efforts at social reform (prohibition of alcohol, a new world map projection, dietary reform, a new calendar, eugenics) and being spectacularly wrong about the stock market in October 1929.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 89.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    During World War II, Colonel Stimson politely rejected Fisher’s suggestion to create alcohol-free zones around military bases. See Robbins (2002, 182–186) on Stimson and Skull and Bones. The Skull and Bones connection was relevant for Fisher’s access to William Howard Taft (tapped for Bones ten years before Fisher and Stimson), who supported Fisher’s 1912 proposal for an international conference on the rising cost of living, and, in 1931, for Fisher’s reassurance to skeptical Econometric Society members of the seriousness of a proposal to fund a journal and research commission in econometrics made by Alfred Cowles , 3rd (a 1913 Yale graduate and Skull and Bones member whose father, Alfred Cowles , 2nd, had been tapped for Skull and Bones two years before Fisher).

  2. 2.

    There was a comparable tension between the equilibrating role of asset markets and the potential instability of a monetary economy in Tobin’s work, see Dimand (2014).

References

  • Allais, Maurice. 1947. Économie et Intérêt. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale et Librairie des Publications Officieles; 2nd ed., Paris: Éditions Clement Juglar, 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  • Allen, Robert Loring. 1993. Irving Fisher: A Biography. Boston and Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barber, William J. 1988. The Fortunes of Political Economy in an Environment of Academic Conservatism: Yale University. In Breaking the Academic Mould: Economists and American Higher Learning in the Nineteenth Century, ed. William J. Barber, 132–168, 400–405. Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bernanke, Ben S. 2000. Essays on the Great Depression. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bordo, M.D., and Rockoff, H. 2013. The Influence of Irving Fisher on Milton Friedman’s Monetary Economics. Journal of the History of Economic Thought 35: 153–172.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boumans, Marcel. 2001. Fisher’s Instrumental Approach to Index Numbers. In The Age of Economic Measurement, ed. Judy L. Klein and Mary S. Morgan. Annual Supplement to History of Political Economy 33: 313–344.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cross, Melvin L., and Robert B. Ekelund Jr. 1980. A. T. Hadley on Monopoly Theory and Railway Regulation: An American Contribution to Economic Analysis and Policy. History of Political Economy 12: 214–233.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • DeLong, J. Bradford. 2000. The Triumph of Monetarism? Journal of Economic Perspectives 14: 83–94.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diewert, W. Erwin. 2013. Irving Fisher and Index Number Theory. Journal of the History of Economic Thought 35: 199–232.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dimand, Robert W. 2013. ‘Perhaps I’m a Don Quixote But I’m Trying to Be a Paul Revere’: Irving Fisher as a Public Intellectual. In The Economist as Public Intellectual, ed. Tiago Mata and Steven G. Medema. Annual Supplement to History of Political Economy 45: 20–37.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dimand, Robert W. 2014. James Tobin. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, Great Thinkers in Economics.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dimand, Robert W., and John Geanakoplos (eds.). 2005. Celebrating Irving Fisher. Malden, MA: Blackwell (also as supplement to American Journal of Economics and Sociology 64: 1).

    Google Scholar 

  • Dorfman, Robert. 1995. Austrian and American Capital Theories: A Contrast of Cultures. Journal of the History of Economic Thought 17 (1): 21–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fellner, William, et al. 1967. Ten Economic Studies in the Tradition of Irving Fisher. New York: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fisher, Irving. 1997. The Works of Irving Fisher, 14 vols., ed. William J. Barber assisted by Robert W. Dimand and Kevin Foster, consulting editor James Tobin. London: Pickering & Chatto.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fisher, Irving Norton. 1956. My Father Irving Fisher. New York: Comet Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fisher, Irving Norton. 1961. A Bibliography of the Writings of Irving Fisher. New Haven, CT: Yale University Library, with supplement 1961.

    Google Scholar 

  • Friedman, Walter A. 2014. Fortune Tellers: The Story of America’s First Economic Forecasters. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Keynes, John Maynard. 1936. The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. London: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Keynes, John Maynard. 1971–1989. The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes, 30 vols., General eds. D.E. Moggridge and E.A.G. Robinson, Volume eds. E.S. Johnson and D.E. Moggridge. London: Macmillan and New York: Cambridge University Press, for the Royal Economic Society.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laidler, David. 1991. The Golden Age of the Quantity Theory. London: Phillip Allan and Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Loef, Hans-E., and Hans G. Monissen (eds.). 1999. The Economics of Irving Fisher. Cheltenham and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.

    Google Scholar 

  • Minsky, Hyman P. 1975. John Maynard Keynes. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Morgan, Mary S. 1997. The Technology of Analogical Models: Irving Fisher’s Monetary Worlds. Philosophy of Science 64: S304–314.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Norton, John Pease. 1902. Statistical Studies in the New York Money Market. New York: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robbins, Alexandra. 2002. Secrets of the Tomb: Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the Hidden Paths of Power. Boston: Little, Brown.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schumpeter, Joseph A. 1954. History of Economic Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shiller, Robert J. 2013. Irving Fisher, Debt Deflation and Crises. Journal of the History of Economic Thought 35: 179–183.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tobin, James. 1980. Asset Accumulation and Economic Activity. Oxford: Blackwell and Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wicksell, Knut. 1898. Interest and Prices, trans. R.F. Kahn with Introduction by Bertil Ohlin. London: Macmillan, 1936.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, Canada

    Robert W. Dimand

Authors
  1. Robert W. Dimand
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Robert W. Dimand .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Dimand, R.W. (2019). Economic Scientist, Economic and Social Reformer. In: Irving Fisher. Great Thinkers in Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05177-8_1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05177-8_1

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-05176-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-05177-8

  • eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation