Irving Fisher

Irving Fisher ( born February 27, 1867 in Saugerties, New York, † April 29, 1947 in New York City ) was an American economist.

He is one of the main representatives of neoclassicism in the U.S., however, increases in the neoclassical a special role. Fisher was known to a wide audience during his lifetime. He is known for his theory of interest. In addition, for example, the Fisher effect, the Fisher equation, the Fisher equation and transport the Fisher separation theorem are named after him.

Life and work

Fisher's father was a teacher and parish priest and brought his son to the belief that he would be a useful member of society. Irving Fisher early showed a talent for mathematics and a passion for invention. A week after he was admitted to Yale University, his father died at the age of 53 years. Nevertheless, Fisher began his studies and supported his mother and brother financially from his teaching as a tutor.

Fishers strongest subject was mathematics, but economics corresponded more his ideas about making a contribution to society. For his career, and his dissertation, he decided to combine the two and worked in the field of mathematical economics. In 1891 he received his first Ph.D. in Economics, awarded at Yale University. His doctoral supervisors were the physicist Josiah Willard Gibbs and the economist William Graham Sumner. When Fisher began his work, it was not clear that there was already substantial contributions to the field of mathematical economics. However, his work reached quickly a high level, and his contributions were perceived by European economists as a class.

Fisher has always been a great anxiety to bring life to his analysis. Although his books and articles were of unusual mathematical nature for his time, he succeeded to present his theory plausible.

His research on the basic theory not yet touched the social issues of his time. This changed, however, when Fisher questions of monetary theory turned that became the focus of his work. At the end of the 19th century there were in the United States disagreement on the question of money standards: should the value of the dollar be left to market forces or be linked to the value of a certain quantity of silver or gold, or a combination of both? A binding of silver ( or gold) without limiting the embossing crowd was particularly interested in the mine owners in the western U.S. as well as by farmers, they promised an increase in the prices of farm products from a monetary expansion. Similarly, debtors hoped a real relief in the wake of a monetary expansion ( free silver movement).

Fisher employed at that time with an abstract analysis of the behavior of interest rates to reflect changing price levels. He underlined the separation of real and nominal interest rates, a separation that is now fundamental to the analysis of inflation. Fisher believed that people are subject in different ways the money illusion: you have trouble to look behind the money and the goods that can be bought with money. In an ideal world, changes in the price level would not affect production and employment, but in reality the money illusion could cause inflation and deflation serious damage.

1898 - Fisher was already a professor at Yale University and married - was diagnosed with tuberculosis Fisher. After three years of sanatorium stay, he returned to his work. In public, he is best known for a book that deals with issues of health and hygiene. His involvement in health issues, jogging and avoiding raw meat gave him a reputation as a health nut, which is probably also damaged his authority as a serious economist. Fisher was also a staunch eugenicists.

For more than forty years, Fisher worked on his idea of ​​the effects of a defective " dance of the dollar " and designed ways to stabilize the price level. Statistical analyzes were crucial to justify why the price level of stabilization required. Fisher was one of the pioneers in the application of correlation analysis in economics, and in the 1920s he introduced the technique of "distributed lay analysis" one. One of his articles on the statistical relationship between unemployment and changes in the price level was re- launched in 1973 and in the Journal of Political Economy under the title " I Discovered the Phillips curve" ( I discovered the Phillips curve ) published. Index numbers played an important role in his techniques as money theorists, and his book "The Making of Index Numbers" was an influential contribution.

Fisher was a prolific author who wrote theoretical essays and at the same time took up the problems of the first World War, the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression in the 1930s in journalistic articles. His most famous book, "The Purchasing Power of Money" ( 1911) laid the quantity theory of - his explanation of the determinants of the price level - and still be regarded book " Theory of Interest" ( 1930) summed up his view of the effects of price level on the interest rate as well together like the real forces under the nominal sizes.

Due to the great stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression Fisher lost his fortune, which he had developed with his card index invention Rolodex. A few days before the stock market crash made ​​Fisher - who was also a supporter of then-President Herbert Hoover - his famous statement that " stock prices one - as it seems -. Achieved lasting high level " Even in the months after the stock market crash, he continued, investors to insure that a recovery would come soon. When the world economic crisis was at its peak, he began to warn of the economic dangers of deflation. Prices remained central in his thinking, but his debt - deflation theory emphasized the rising real burden of debt with falling prices. The analysis could not convince them, and those who were looking for new ideas, instead turned to the ideas of Keynes.

In the 1930s, Fisher advocated the idea of a full- reserve system. After the Chicago plan was not implemented, he spent the rest of his life, to convince as a lobbyist to Congress and the public of "100% Money".

His estate is located in the Library of Yale University.

Publications

  • Mathematical Investigations in the Theory of Value and Prices. 1892
  • Appreciation and interest. Macmillan, New York 1896
  • A brief introduction to the infinitesimal calculus, designed Especially to aid in reading mathematical economics and statistics. Macmillan, New York / London 1897 Brief introduction to the differential and integral calculus ( calculus ). B. G. Teubner, Leipzig 1904
  • The purchasing power of money. Your determination and their relation to credit, interest and crises. G. Reimer, Berlin 1916
  • Live correctly. A guide to healthy Lebensführg according to modern scientific principles. O. Lautenbach, Bad Buckow / Leipzig 1937
  • The fluctuating monetary value. Its causes and consequences, and proposals for its removal. de Gruyter & Co., Berlin 1924
  • The Crisis of Prohibition. Neuland- Verlag, Berlin 1929
  • The illusion of money. Reimar Hobbing, Berlin 1928
  • America's meritorious attempt. Neuland- Verlag, Berlin 1932
  • The theory of interest. Fischer, Jena 1932
  • Fixed currency. On the Development of the idea. Lautenbach, Uchtdorf / Weimar / Leipzig in 1937
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