Irving Fisher

Irving Fisher (February 27, 1867 – April 29, 1947)[1] was an

Irving Fisher
American economist, statistician, inventor, eugenicist and
progressive social campaigner. He was one of the earliest
American neoclassical economists, though his later work on debt
deflation has been embraced by the post-Keynesian school.[2]
Joseph Schumpeter described him as "the greatest economist the
United States has ever produced",[3] an assessment later repeated
by James Tobin[4] and Milton Friedman.[5]

Fisher made important contributions to utility theory and general

equilibrium.[6][7] He was also a pioneer in the rigorous study of
intertemporal choice in markets, which led him to develop a
theory of capital and interest rates.[4] His research on the quantity
theory of money inaugurated the school of macroeconomic
thought known as "monetarism".[8] Fisher was also a pioneer of
econometrics, including the development of index numbers.
Some concepts named after him include the Fisher equation, the
Fisher hypothesis, the international Fisher effect, the Fisher
separation theorem and Fisher market. Fisher photographed by George
Grantham Bain in 1927
Fisher was perhaps the first celebrity economist, but his
reputation during his lifetime was irreparably harmed by his Born February 27, 1867
public statement, just nine days before the Wall Street Crash of Saugerties, New
1929, that the stock market had reached "a permanently high York
plateau". His subsequent theory of debt deflation as an Died April 29, 1947
explanation of the Great Depression, as well as his advocacy of (aged 80)
full-reserve banking and alternative currencies, were largely
New York City, New
ignored in favor of the work of John Maynard Keynes.[4]
York
Fisher's reputation has since recovered in academic economics,
particularly after his theoretical models were rediscovered in the Nationality American
late 1960s to the 1970s, a period of increasing reliance on Spouse Margaret Hazard
mathematical models within the field.[4][9][10] Interest in him has (m. 1893; died 1940)
also grown in the public due to an increased interest in debt
deflation after the Great Recession.[11] Academic career
Institution Yale University[1]
Fisher was one of the foremost proponents of the full-reserve
Field Mathematical
banking, which he advocated as one of the authors of A Program
for Monetary Reform where the general proposal is economics
outlined.[12][13] School or Neoclassical
tradition economics
Biography Alma mater Yale University (BA,
PhD)
Fisher was born in Saugerties, New York. His father was a Doctoral Josiah Willard Gibbs
teacher and a Congregational minister, who raised his son to advisor William Graham
believe he must be a useful member of society. Despite being
Sumner
raised in religious family, he later on became an atheist.[14] As a Influences William Stanley
child, he had remarkable mathematical ability and a flair for Jevons, Eugen von
invention. A week after he was admitted to Yale College his Böhm-Bawerk
father died, at age 53. Irving then supported his mother, brother,
and himself, mainly by tutoring. He graduated first in his class Contributions Fisher equation
with a BA degree in 1888, having also been elected as a member Equation of
of the Skull and Bones society.[15]: 1 4  exchange
Price index
In 1891, Fisher received the first PhD in economics granted by Debt deflation
Yale.[16] His faculty advisors were the theoretical physicist Phillips curve
Willard Gibbs and the sociologist William Graham Sumner. As a Money illusion
student, Fisher had shown particular talent and inclination for Fisher separation
mathematics, but he found that economics offered greater scope
theorem
for his ambition and social concerns. His thesis, published by
Independent Party of
Yale in 1892 as Mathematical Investigations in the Theory of
Value and Prices, was a rigorous development of the theory of Connecticut
general equilibrium. When he began writing the thesis, Fisher
had not been aware that Léon Walras and his continental European disciples had already covered similar
ground. Nonetheless, Fisher's work was a very significant contribution and was immediately recognized
and praised as first-rate by such European masters as Francis Edgeworth.

After graduating from Yale, Fisher studied in Berlin and Paris. From 1890 onward, he remained at Yale,
first as a tutor, then after 1898 as a professor of political economy, and after 1935 as professor emeritus. He
edited the Yale Review from 1896 to 1910 and was active in many learned societies, institutes, and welfare
organizations. He was president of the American Economic Association in 1918. The American
Mathematical Society selected him as its Gibbs Lecturer for 1929.[17] A leading early proponent of
econometrics, in 1930 he founded, with Ragnar Frisch and Charles F. Roos the Econometric Society, of
which he was the first president.

Fisher was a prolific writer, producing journalism as well as technical books and articles, and addressing
various social issues surrounding the First World War, the prosperous 1920s and the depressed 1930s. He
made several practical inventions, the most notable of which was an "index visible filing system" which he
patented in 1913[18] and sold to Kardex Rand (later Remington Rand) in 1925. This, and his subsequent
stock investments, made him a wealthy man until his personal finances were badly hit by the Crash of
1929.[19]

Fisher was also an active social and health campaigner, as well as an advocate of vegetarianism,
prohibition, and eugenics.[20] In 1893, he married Margaret Hazard, a granddaughter of Rhode Island
industrialist and social reformer Rowland G. Hazard.[1] He died of inoperable colon cancer[21] in New
York City in 1947, at the age of 80.[1]

Economic theories

Utility theory

James Tobin, writing on the contributions of John Bates Clark and Irving Fisher to neoclassical theory in
America[22] argues that American economists contributed in their own way to the preparation of a common
ground after the neoclassical revolution. In particular Clark and Irving Fisher "brought neoclassical theory
into American journals, classrooms, and textbooks, and its analytical tools into the kits of researchers and
practitioners." Already in his doctoral thesis, "Fisher expounds thoroughly the mathematics of utility
functions and their maximization, and he is careful to allow for corner solutions." Already then, Fisher
"states clearly that neither interpersonally comparable utility nor cardinal utility for each individual is
necessary to the determination of equilibrium."

In reviewing the history of utility theory, economist George Stigler wrote that Fisher's doctoral thesis had
been "brilliant" and stressed that it contained "the first careful examination of the measurability of the utility
function and its relevance to demand theory."[7] While his published work exhibited an unusual degree of
mathematical sophistication for an economist of his day, Fisher always sought to bring his analysis to life
and to present his theories as lucidly as possible. For instance, to complement the arguments in his doctoral
thesis, he built an elaborate hydraulic machine with pumps and levers, allowing him to demonstrate visually
how the equilibrium prices in the market adjusted in response to changes in supply or demand.

Interest and capital

Fisher is probably best remembered today in neoclassical

economics for his theory of capital, investment, and interest rates,
first exposited in his The Nature of Capital and Income (1906) and
elaborated on in The Rate of Interest (1907). His 1930 treatise, The
Theory of Interest, summed up a lifetime's research into capital,
capital budgeting, credit markets, and the factors (including
inflation) that determine interest rates.

Fisher saw that subjective economic value is not only a function of

the amount of goods and services owned or exchanged, but also of
the moment in time when they are purchased with money. A good
available now has a different value than the same good available at
a later date; value has a time as well as a quantity dimension. The
relative price of goods available at a future date, in terms of goods
sacrificed now, is measured by the interest rate. Fisher made free
use of the standard diagrams used to teach undergraduate
economics, but labeled the axes "consumption now" and
"consumption next period" (instead of the usual schematic
alternatives of "apples" and "oranges"). The resulting theory, one of Theory of interest as determined by
considerable power and insight, was presented in detail in The impatience to spend income and
Theory of Interest.[23] opportunity to invest it, 1930

This model, later generalized to the case of K goods and N periods

(including the case of infinitely many periods) has become a standard theory of capital and interest, and is
described in Gravelle and Rees,[24] and Aliprantis, Brown, and Burkinshaw.[25] This theoretical advance is
explained in Hirshleifer.[9]

Fisher saw that his theory, via economic policy, was making an impact on society as a whole. Once he
brought out his Quantity Theory of Money, it started to bring economic models to life. One of the strongest
points that Fisher brings out in discussing interest rates was the power of impatience.[26]

Monetary economics

Fisher's research into the basic theory of prices and interest rates did not touch directly on the great social
issues of the day. On the other hand, his monetary economics did and this grew to be the main focus of
Fisher's mature work.
It was Fisher who (following the pioneering work of Simon Newcomb) formulated the quantity theory of
money in terms of the "equation of exchange:" Let M be the total stock of money, P the price level, T the
amount of transactions carried out using money, and V the velocity of circulation of money, so that

Later economists replaced T by the real output Y (or Q), usually quantified by the real Gross domestic
product (GDP).

Fisher's Appreciation and Interest was an abstract analysis of the behavior of interest rates when the price
level is changing. It emphasized the distinction between real and nominal interest rates:

[27]

where is the real interest rate, is the nominal interest rate, and the inflation is a measure of the increase
in the price level. When inflation is sufficiently low, the real interest rate can be approximated as the
nominal interest rate minus the expected inflation rate. The resulting equation is known as the Fisher
equation in his honor.

Fisher believed that investors and savers – people in general – were afflicted in varying degrees by "money
illusion"; they could not see past the money to the goods the money could buy. In an ideal world, changes
in the price level would have no effect on production or employment. In the actual world with money
illusion, inflation (and deflation) did serious harm. For more than forty years, Fisher elaborated his vision of
the damaging "dance of the dollar" and devised various schemes to "stabilize" money, i.e. to stabilize the
price level. He was one of the first to subject macroeconomic data, including the money stock, interest
rates, and the price level, to statistical analyses and tests. In the 1920s, he introduced the technique later
called distributed lags. In 1973, the Journal of Political Economy posthumously reprinted his 1926 paper
on the statistical relation between unemployment and inflation, retitling it as "I discovered the Phillips
curve". Index numbers played an important role in his monetary theory, and his book The Making of Index
Numbers has remained influential down to the present day.

Fisher's main intellectual rival was the Swedish economist Knut Wicksell. Fisher espoused a more succinct
explanation of the quantity theory of money, resting it almost exclusively on long run prices. Wicksell's
theory was considerably more complicated, beginning with interest rates in a system of changes in the real
economy. Although both economists concluded from their theories that at the heart of the business cycle
(and economic crisis) was government monetary policy, their disagreement would not be solved in their
lifetimes, and indeed, it was inherited by the policy debates between the Keynesians and monetarists
beginning a half-century later.[28]

Debt-deflation

Following the stock market crash of 1929, and in light of the ensuing Great Depression, Fisher developed a
theory of economic crises called debt-deflation, which attributed the crises to the bursting of a credit bubble.
Initially, during the upswing over-confident economic agents are lured by the prospect of high profits to
increase their debt in order to leverage their gains. According to Fisher, once the credit bubble bursts, this
unleashes a series of effects that have serious negative impact on the real economy:

1. Debt liquidation and distress selling.

2. Contraction of the money supply as bank loans are paid off.
3. A fall in the level of asset prices.
 4. A still greater fall in the net worth of businesses, precipitating bankruptcies.
5. A fall in profits.
6. A reduction in output, in trade and in employment.
7. Pessimism and loss of confidence.
8. Hoarding of money.
9. A fall in nominal interest rates and a rise in deflation-adjusted interest rates.

Crucially, as debtors try to liquidate or pay off their nominal debt, the fall of prices caused by this defeats
the very attempt to reduce the real burden of debt. Thus, while repayment reduces the amount of money
owed, this does not happen fast enough since the real value of the dollar now rises ('swelling of the
dollar').[29]

This theory was largely ignored in favor of Keynesian economics, in part because of the damage to Fisher's
reputation caused by his public optimism about the stock market, just prior to the crash. Debt-deflation has
experienced a revival of mainstream interest since the 1980s, and particularly with the Late-2000s
recession. Steve Keen predicted the 2008 recession by using Hyman Minsky's further development of
Fisher's work on debt-deflation. Debt-deflation is now the major theory with which Fisher's name is
associated.[11]

Stock market crash of 1929

The stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression cost Fisher much of his personal
wealth and academic reputation. He famously predicted, nine days before the crash, that stock prices had
"reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." [30] Irving Fisher stated on October 21 that the
market was "only shaking out of the lunatic fringe" and went on to explain why he felt the prices still had
not caught up with their real value and should go much higher. On Wednesday, October 23, he announced
in a banker's meeting "security values in most instances were not inflated." For months after the Crash, he
continued to assure investors that a recovery was just around the corner. Once the Great Depression was in
full force, he did warn that the ongoing drastic deflation was the cause of the disastrous cascading
insolvencies then plaguing the American economy because deflation increased the real value of debts fixed
in dollar terms. Fisher was so discredited by his 1929 pronouncements and by the failure of a firm he had
started that few people took notice of his "debt-deflation" analysis of the Depression. People instead
eagerly turned to the ideas of Keynes. Fisher's debt-deflation scenario has since seen a revival since the
1980s.

Constructive Income Taxation

Lawrence Lokken, the University of Miami School of Law professor of economics, credits [31] Fisher's
1942 book with the concept behind the Unlimited Savings Accumulation Tax, a reform introduced in the
United States Senate in 1995 by Senator Pete Domenici (R-New Mexico), former Senator Sam Nunn (D-
Georgia), and Senator Bob Kerrey (D-Nebraska). The concept was that unnecessary spending (which is
hard to define in a law) can be taxed by taxing income minus all net investments and savings, and minus an
allowance for essential purchases, thus making funds available for investment.

Social and health campaigns

In 1898, Fisher was diagnosed with tuberculosis, the same disease that had killed his father. He spent three
years in sanatoria, finally making a full recovery. That experience sparked in him a vocation as a health
campaigner. He was one of the founders of the Life Extension Institute, under whose auspices he co-
authored the bestselling book How to Live: Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science, published
in 1915. He advocated regular exercise and the avoidance of red meat, tobacco, and alcohol. In 1924,
Fisher wrote an anti-smoking article for the Reader's Digest, which argued that "tobacco lowers the whole
tone of the body and decreases its vital power and resistance ... [it] acts like a narcotic poison, like opium
and like alcohol, though usually in a less degree".[32]

Fisher supported the legal prohibition of alcohol and wrote three booklets defending prohibition in the
United States on grounds of public health and economic productivity.[33] As a proponent of Eugenics he
helped found the Race Betterment Foundation in 1906. He also defended eugenics, serving in the scientific
advisory board of the Eugenics Record Office and as first president of the American Eugenics Society.[34]

When his daughter Margaret was diagnosed with schizophrenia, Fisher had her treated at the New Jersey
State Hospital at Trenton, whose director was the psychiatrist Henry Cotton. Cotton believed in a "focal
sepsis" theory, according to which mental illness resulted from infectious material in the roots of teeth,
bowel recesses, and other places in the body. Cotton also claimed that surgical removal of the infected
tissue could alleviate the patient's mental disorder. At Trenton, Margaret Fisher had sections of her bowel
and colon removed, which eventually resulted in her death. Irving Fisher nonetheless remained convinced
of the validity of Cotton's treatment.[35]

Selected publications
Fisher, Irving Norton, 1961. A Bibliography of the Writings of Irving Fisher (1961). Compiled by Fisher's
son; contains 2425 entries.

Primary

1892. Mathematical Investigations in the Theory of Value and Prices.[36] Scroll to chapter
links. (https://books.google.com/books?id=zMNGyKoJxv8C)
1896. Appreciation and Interest. Link. (https://books.google.com/books?id=hJHPAAAAM
AAJ&q=%22Appreciation+and+interest%22+fisher)
1906. The Nature of Capital and Income.[37] Scroll to chapter links. (https://books.google.
com/books?id=1PVKAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR4)
1907. The Rate of Interest.[37] Extracts (http://www.unc.edu/~salemi/Econ006/Irving_Fish
er_Chaper_1.pdf) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20171215091955/http://www.un
c.edu/~salemi/Econ006/Irving_Fisher_Chaper_1.pdf) 2017-12-15 at the Wayback
Machine from Preface and Appendix to ch. VII.
1910, 1914. Introduction to Economic Science. Section links. (https://books.google.com/
books?id=NegsAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Introduction+to+Economic+Science%22+fisher)
1911a,[38] 1922, 2nd ed. The Purchasing Power of Money: Its Determination and
Relation to Credit, Interest, and Crises. Scroll to chapter links (http://www.econlib.org/libr
ary/YPDBooks/Fisher/fshPPM.html) from Library of Economics and Liberty (LE&L). Full
text (https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/3610) of 1920 edition online via FRASER
1911b, 1913. Elementary Principles of Economics. Scroll to chapter links. (https://books.
google.com/books?id=5V9MAAAAIAAJ&q=%22Elementary+Principles+of+Economic
s%22+fisher)
1915. How to Live: Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science (with Eugene
Lyon Fisk). Link. (https://books.google.com/books?id=ZH0XAAAAYAAJ&q=false)
1918, "Is 'Utility' the Most Suitable Term for the Concept It is Used to Denote?" American
Economic Review, pp. 335–37]. Reprint. (http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugc
m/3ll3/fisher/utility.htm)
 1921a. "Dollar Stabilization," Encyclopædia Britannica 12th ed.. XXX, pp. 852–853.
Reprint page links (http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/fshEnc1.html) from LE&L.
1921b, The Best Form of Index Number, American Statistical Association Quarterly.
17(133), pp. pp. 533–537 (https://www.jstor.org/pss/2965310).
1922. The Making of Index Numbers: A Study of Their Varieties, Tests, and Reliability.[39]
Scroll to chapter links (https://books.google.com/books?id=FO9AAAAAYAAJ),
1923, "The Business Cycle Largely a 'Dance of the Dollar'," Journal of the American
Statistical Association, 18, pp. 1024–28. Link. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2965663)
1926, "A Statistical Relation between Unemployment and Price Changes," International
Labour Review, 13(6), p pp. 785–92 (http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?collection
=journals&handle=hein.journals/intlr13&div=43&id=&page=). Reprinted as 1973, "I
Discovered the Phillips Curve: A Statistical Relation between Unemployment and Price
Changes'," Journal of Political Economy, 81(2, Part 1), p pp. 496–502 (https://www.jstor.o
rg/pss/1830534).
1927, "A Statistical Method for Measuring 'Marginal Utility' and Testing the Justice of a
Progressive Income Tax" in Economic Essays Contributed in Honor of John Bates Clark
.
1928, The Money Illusion, New York: Adelphi Company. Scroll to chapter-preview links.
(https://books.google.com/books?id=LiyX9Xdk8YAC&q=%22The+Money+Illusion%22+fi
sher)
1930a. The Stock Market Crash and After.
1930b. The Theory of Interest.[40] Chapter I. (http://www.unc.edu/~salemi/Econ006/Irving
_Fisher_Chaper_1.pdf) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20171215091955/http://w
ww.unc.edu/~salemi/Econ006/Irving_Fisher_Chaper_1.pdf) 2017-12-15 at the Wayback
Machine Chapter links (http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/Fisher/fshToI.html),
each numbered by paragraph via LE&L.
1932. Booms and Depressions: Some First Principles. full text online (https://fraser.stloui
sfed.org/title/104) via FRASER.
Fisher, Irving (1933a). "The debt-deflation theory of great depressions" (https://fraser.stlo
uisfed.org/title/3596). Econometrica. 1 (4): 337–357. doi:10.2307/1907327 (https://doi.or
g/10.2307%2F1907327). JSTOR 1907327 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/1907327) – via
FRASER.
1933b. Stamp Scrip. full text online (http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/roehrigw/fisher/)
1935. 100% Money. full text online (http://fisher-100money.blogspot.fr/)
1942. "Constructive Income Taxation: A Proposal for Reform." New York: Harper &
Brothers.
1996. The Works of Irving Fisher. edited by William J. Barber et al. 14 volumes London :
Pickering & Chatto.

See also
Chicago plan
Eugenics in the United States
Ham and Eggs Movement, California pension reform plan, 1938–40
Library of Economics and Liberty
Marginalism
Milton Friedman
2018 Swiss sovereign-money initiative
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her-equation/). Corporate Finance Institute. Retrieved 2021-10-18.
28. Humphrey, Thomas M. "Fisher and Wicksell on the Quantity Theory - Economic Quarterly,
Fall 1997 - Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond" (https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/r
esearch/economic_quarterly/1997/fall/humphrey). www.richmondfed.org. Retrieved 15 July
2016.
29. Fisher, Irving (1933). "The debt-deflation theory of great depressions" (https://fraser.stlouisfe
d.org/title/3596). Econometrica. 1 (4): 337–357. doi:10.2307/1907327 (https://doi.org/10.230
7%2F1907327). JSTOR 1907327 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/1907327) – via FRASER.
30. "FISHER SEES STOCKS PERMANENTLY HIGH; Yale Economist Tells Purchasing Agents
Increased Earnings Justify Rise. SAYS TRUSTS AID SALES Finds Special Knowledge,
Applied to Diversify Holdings, Shifts Risks for Clients". New York Times. October 16, 1929.
p. 8. ProQuest 104696595 (https://search.proquest.com/docview/104696595).
31. Lokken, Lawrence (October 1, 1998). Taxing USA tomorrow. (Unlimited Savings Allowance
Tax) (https://web.archive.org/web/20130517171816/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-212
76813.html). Southern Economic Journal (e-document ed.). Chicago. Archived from the
original (http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-21276813.html) on May 17, 2013.
32. Irving Fisher (1924). "Does tobacco injure the human body?" (https://web.archive.org/web/20
140418233913/http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/fgo81c00/pdf%3Bjsessionid%3D512902F95
7843008C40E997C9D0B9A6C.tobacco03). Reader's Digest. Archived from the original (htt
p://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/fgo81c00/pdf;jsessionid=512902F957843008C40E997C9D0B
9A6C.tobacco03) on 2014-04-18.
33. Irving Fisher, Prohibition at Its Worst (New York: Macmillan, 1926); Prohibition Still at Its
Worst (New York: Alcohol Information Committee, 1928); The Noble Experiment (New York:
Alcohol Information Committee, 1930).
34. Engs, Ruth C. (2003). The Progressive Era's Health Reform Movement: A Historical
Dictionary. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 121. ISBN 9780275979324.
35. Madhouse: A Tragic Tale of Megalomania and Modern Medicine, Andrew Scull, Yale
University Press, 2005
36. Fiske, Thomas (1893). "Review: Mathematical Investigations in the Theory of Value and
Prices by Irving Fisher" (https://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1893-02-09/S0002-9904-1893-00
145-6/S0002-9904-1893-00145-6.pdf) (PDF). Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 2 (9): 204–211.
doi:10.1090/s0002-9904-1893-00145-6 (https://doi.org/10.1090%2Fs0002-9904-1893-0014
5-6).
37. Wilson, Edwin Bidwell (1909). "Review: The Nature of Capital and Income (1906) and The
Rate of Interest (1907) by Irving Fisher" (https://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1909-15-04/S000
2-9904-1909-01728-8/S0002-9904-1909-01728-8.pdf) (PDF). Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 15 (4):
169–186. doi:10.1090/S0002-9904-1909-01728-8 (https://doi.org/10.1090%2FS0002-9904-
1909-01728-8).
38. Wilson, Edwin Bidwell (1914). "Review: The Purchasing Power of Money by Irving Fisher"
(https://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1914-20-07/S0002-9904-1914-02503-0/S0002-9904-191
4-02503-0.pdf) (PDF). Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 20 (7): 377–381. doi:10.1090/s0002-9904-
1914-02503-0 (https://doi.org/10.1090%2Fs0002-9904-1914-02503-0).
39. Crathorne, A. R. (1924). "Review: The Making of Index Numbers by Irving Fisher" (https://ww
w.ams.org/journals/bull/1924-30-01/S0002-9904-1924-03859-2/S0002-9904-1924-03859-2.
pdf) (PDF). Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 30 (1): 82–83. doi:10.1090/s0002-9904-1924-03859-2 (htt
ps://doi.org/10.1090%2Fs0002-9904-1924-03859-2).
40. Roos, C. F. (1930). "Review of The Theory of Interest by Irving Fisher" (https://www.ams.org/j
ournals/bull/1930-36-11/S0002-9904-1930-05048-X/S0002-9904-1930-05048-X.pdf) (PDF).
Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 36 (11): 783–784. doi:10.1090/s0002-9904-1930-05048-x (https://doi.
org/10.1090%2Fs0002-9904-1930-05048-x).

Further reading
Allen, Robert Loring (1993). Irving Fisher: A Biography
Dimand, Robert W. (2020). "J. Laurence Laughlin versus Irving Fisher on the quantity theory
of money, 1894 to 1913." Oxford Economic Papers
Dimand, Robert W. (2003). "Irving Fisher on the International Transmission of Booms and
Depressions through Monetary Standards." Journal of Money, Credit & Banking. Vol: 35#1
pp 49+. online edition (https://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5000634264)
Dimand, Robert W. (1993). "The Dance of the Dollar: Irving Fisher's Monetary Theory of
Economic Fluctuations," History of Economics Review 20:161–172.
Dimand, Robert W. (1994). "Irving Fisher's Debt-Deflation Theory of Great Depressions,"
Review of Social Economy 52:92–107
Dimand, Robert W (1998). "The Fall and Rise of Irving Fisher's Macroeconomics". Journal of
the History of Economic Thought. 20 (2): 191–201. doi:10.1017/s1053837200001851 (http
 s://doi.org/10.1017%2Fs1053837200001851). S2CID 153821087 (https://api.semanticschol
ar.org/CorpusID:153821087).
Dimand, Robert W., and Geanakoplos, John (2005). "Celebrating Irving Fisher: The Legacy
of a Great Economist" American Journal of Economics & Sociology, Jan 2005, Vol. 64 Issue
1, pp. 3–18
Dorfman, Joseph (1958). The Economic Mind in American Civilization, vol. 3.
Fellner, William, ed. (1967). Ten Economic Studies in the Tradition of Irving Fisher
Fisher, Irving Norton (1956). My Father Irving Fisher.
Sasuly, Max (1947). "Irving Fisher and Social Science". Econometrica. 15 (4): 255–78.
doi:10.2307/1905330 (https://doi.org/10.2307%2F1905330). JSTOR 1905330 (https://www.j
stor.org/stable/1905330).
Schumpeter, Joseph (1951). Ten Great Economists: 222–38.
Schumpeter, Joseph (1954). A History of Economic Analysis (1954)
Thaler, Richard (1999). "Irving Fisher: Behavioral Economist (https://wayback.archive-it.org/
all/20071202154721/http://gsbwww.uchicago.edu/fac/richard.thaler/research/Irving%20Fish
er.pdf)," American Economic Review.
Tobin, James (1987). "Fisher, Irving," The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, Vol. 2:
369–76. Reprinted in American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Jan, 2005, 17 pages.
(http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0254/is_1_64/ai_n13798783/?tag=content;col1)
Tobin, James (1985). "Neoclassical Theory in America: J. B. Clark and Fisher" American
Economic Review (Dec 1985) vol 75#6 pp. 28–38 in JSTOR (https://www.jstor.org/pss/1914
327)

External links
Archive for the History of Economic Thought (https://web.archive.org/web/20050324032215/
http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html) at McMaster University
New School for Social Research website:
Irving Fisher, 1867–1947. (https://web.archive.org/web/20040603160005/http://cepa.new
school.edu/het/profiles/fisher.htm) Includes a photograph of the young Fisher. For a
photograph of the older man, see Irving Fisher (http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/maths/histsta
t/people/fisher_i.gif) on the Portraits of Statisticians (http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/maths/hi
ststat/people/welcome.htm) page.
Irving Fisher's Theory of Investment. (https://web.archive.org/web/20080429203224/htt
p://cepa.newschool.edu/het/essays/capital/fisherinvest.htm)
Irving Fisher Papers (MS 212). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.[1] (http://h
dl.handle.net/10079/fa/mssa.ms.0212)
Herbert Scarf, William C.Brainard, "How to Compute Equilibrium Prices in 1891". Cowles
Foundation Discussion Paper 1272, August 2000 (http://cowles.econ.yale.edu/P/cd/d12b/d1
272.pdf) – for the description of Fisher's hydraulic apparatus.
"Irving Fisher (1867–1947)" (http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Fisher.html). The
Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. Library of Economics and Liberty (2nd ed.). Liberty
Fund. 2008.
Works by Irving Fisher (https://www.gutenberg.org/author/Fisher,+Irving) at Project
Gutenberg
Works by or about Irving Fisher (https://archive.org/search.php?query=%28%28subject%3
A%22Fisher%2C%20Irving%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22Irving%20Fisher%22%20OR%
20creator%3A%22Fisher%2C%20Irving%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Irving%20Fisher%
22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Fisher%2C%20I%2E%22%20OR%20title%3A%22Irving%2
0Fisher%22%20OR%20description%3A%22Fisher%2C%20Irving%22%20OR%20descripti
 on%3A%22Irving%20Fisher%22%29%20OR%20%28%221867-1947%22%20AND%20Fis
her%29%29%20AND%20%28-mediatype:software%29) at Internet Archive
Works by or about Irving Fisher (https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/author/134) on FRASER
Irving Fisher (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6684071) at Find a Grave

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