Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T06:42:42.211Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Irving Fisher and the Quantity Theory of Money: The Last Phase

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2009

Robert W. Dimand
Robert W. Dimand
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario L2S 3A1, Canada.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Frank Steindl poses a surprising question in the title of his 1997 article, “Was Fisher a Practicing Quantity Theorist?” and reaches the conclusion that, “Clearly, with the decade of the Great Depression, Fisher was no longer a practicing quantity theorist” (Steindl 1997, p. 259). Such a change in Fisher's monetary economics would sharply revise the view of Irving Fisher generally prevailing in the history of monetary economics, which is based primarily on The Purchasing Power of Money (Fisher with Brown 1911). Fisher's photograph (along with photographs of Marshall and Wicksell) appears on the cover of The Golden Age of the Quantity Theory (Laidler 1991). As Mark Blaug (1995, p. 3) put it, “isn't Irving Fisher the quintessential quantity theorist if there ever was one [?]” Perhaps the most striking tribute to Fisher in the quantity theory tradition is from Milton Friedman, who, addressing the American Economic Association on the question “Have Monetary Policies Failed?” and having quoted from Fisher's 1910 exchange with J. L. Laughlin, remarked “And now I must cease quoting from Fisher, with whom I am in full agreement, and proceed instead to plagiarize him—albeit with modifications to bring him down to date” (Friedman 1972, p. 12).

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , September 2000 , pp. 329 - 348
Copyright
Copyright © The History of Economics Society 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Allen, Robert Loring. 1993. Irving Fisher: A Biography. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
Anderson, Montgomery D. 1946. “Velocity of Money and Velocity of Goods.” Econometrica 14 (04): 180–81.Google Scholar
Barber, William J. 1997. “Career Highlights and Formative Influences.” In Fisher (1997), Vol. 1. Reprinted in Hans-E. Loef and Hans G. Monissen, eds. The Economics of Irving Fisher: Reviewing the Scientific Work of a Great Economist. Cheltenham, UK, and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 1999.Google Scholar
Blaug, Mark. 1995. “Introduction.” In Mark Blaug et al., The Quantity Theory of Money from Locke to Keynes and Friedman. Cheltenham, UK, and Brookfield, VT: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Bordo, Michael D. and Schwartz, Anna J.. 1979. “Clark Warburton: Pioneer Monetarist.” Journal of Monetary Economics 5 (01): 43–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cathings, Waddill and Roos, Charles F.. 1958. Money, Men and Machines, 2nd ed.New York: Econometric Institute.Google Scholar
Cargill, Thomas F. 1979, “Clark Warburton and the Development of Monetarism Since the Great Depression.” History of Political Economy 11 (Fall): 425–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cargill, Thomas F. 1992. “Miscellany: Irving Fisher Comments on Benjamin Strong and the Federal Reserve in the 1930s.” Journal of Political Economy 100 (12): 1273–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chipman, John S. 1999. “Irving Fisher's Contributions to Economic Statistics and Econometrics.” In Loef, Hans-E. and Monissen, Hans G., eds. The Economics of Irving Fisher: Reviewing the Scientific Work of a Great Economist. Cheltenham, UK, and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 1999, pp. 173–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, Harold T. 1941a. The Analysis of Economic Time Series. Bloomington, IN: Principia Press, Cowles Commission Monograph No. 6. Reissued San Antonio, TX: Principia Press of Trinity University, 1963.Google Scholar
Davis, Harold T. 1941b. Theory of Econometrics. Bloomington, IN: Principia Press.Google Scholar
Deutscher, Patrick. 1990. R. G. Hawtrey and the Development of Modern Macroeconomics. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dimand, Robert W. 1991. “Cranks, Heretics and Macroeconomics in the 1930s.” History of Economics Review 16 (Summer): 11–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dimand, Robert W. 1993. “The Dance of the Dollar: Irving Fisher's Monetary Theory of Economic Fluctuations.” History of Economics Review 20 (Summer): 161–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dimand, Robert W. 1994. “Irving Fisher's Debt-Deflation Theory of Great Depressions.” Review of Social Economy 52 (Spring): 92–107, as slightly revised in Hans-E. Loef and Hans G. Monissen, eds. The Economics of Irving Fisher: Reviewing the Scientific Work of a Great Economist. Cheltenham, UK, and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 1999.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dimand, Robert W. 1995. “Irving Fisher, J. M. Keynes, and the Transition to Modern Macroeconomics.” In Cottrell, Allin F. and Lawlor, Michael S., eds., New Perspectives on Keynes, Annual Supplement to History of Political Economy 27. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 247–66.Google Scholar
Dimand, Robert W. 1996. “Fisher and the Inconstant Velocity of Circulation.” Presented to l'Association Charles Gide pour l'Etude de la Pensée Economique, Glendon College of York University, Toronto; forthcoming, Indian Journal of Applied Economics.Google Scholar
Dimand, Robert W. 1997. “Adolphe Landry and Irving Fisher on Circulation and Interest.” Presented to “Colloque scientifique international Adolphe Landry,” Université de Corse, Corte; forthcoming in proceedings edited by Paul-Marie Romani, Paris: INED.Google Scholar
Dimand, Robert W. 1998a. “The Quest for an Ideal Index: Irving Fisher and The Making of Index Numbers.” In Rutherford, Malcolm, ed., The Economic Mind in America. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 128–44.Google Scholar
Dimand, Robert W. 1998b. “Lost and Found: Irving Fisher on the International Transmission of Booms and Depressions Through Monetary Standards.” Presented to Canadian Economic Association, University of Ottawa, May.Google Scholar
Dimand, Robert W. 1999. “Fisher's Monetary Macroeconomics.” In Loef, Hans-E. and Monissen, Hans G., eds., The Economics of Irving Fisher: Reviewing the Scientific Work of a Great Economist. Cheltenham, UK, and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Essars, Pierre des. 1895. “La vitesse de la circulation de la monnaie.” Journal de la Sociétée de Statistique de Paris 36 (avril): 143–51.Google Scholar
Fisher, Irving. 1897. “The Role of Capital in Economic Theory.” Economic Journal 7 (12): 511–37. Reprinted in The Works of Irving Fisher, Vol. 1, 1997.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisher, Irving, assisted by Harry G. Brown. 1911. The Purchasing Power of Money. New York: Macmillan. Reprinted in The Works of Irving Fisher, Vol. 4, 1997.Google Scholar
Fisher, Irving. 1912. Elementary Principles of Economics. New York: Macmillan. Reprinted in The Works of Irving Fisher, Vol. 5, 1997.Google Scholar
Fisher, Irving. 1925. “Our Unstable Dollar and the So-Called Business Cycle.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 20 (06): 179–202. Reprinted in The Works of Irving Fisher, Vol. 8, 1997.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisher, Irving. 1926a. “A Statistical Relation Between Unemployment and Price Changes”. International Labour Review 13 (06): 785–92. Reprinted in The Works of Irving Fisher, Vol. 8, 1997. Also reprinted as “Lost and Found: I Discovered the Phillips Curve—Irving Fisher.” Journal of Political Economy 81 (March/April 1973): 496–502.Google Scholar
Fisher, Irving. 1926b. Prohibition At Its Worst. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Fisher, Irving. 1932. Booms and Depressions. New York: Adelphi. Reprinted in The Works of Irving Fisher, Vol. 10, 1997.Google Scholar
Fisher, Irving. 1933. “The Debt-Depression Theory of Great Depressions.” Econometrica 1 (10): 337–57. Reprinted in Revue de l'Institut International de Statistique (January 1934) and in The Works of Irving Fisher, Vol. 10, 1997.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisher, Irving. 1935. “Are Booms and Depressions Transmitted Internationally Through Monetary Standards?” Bulletin de l'Institut Internationale de Statistique 28: 1–29.Google Scholar
Fisher, Irving. 1936. “The Depression: Its Causes and Cures.” In Abstracts of Papers Presented at the Research Conference on Economics and Statistics Held by the Cowles Commission for Research in Economics, at Colorado College, July 6 to August 8, 1936, edited by Sisam, Charles H.. Colorado Springs, CO: Colorado College Publication, General Series, No. 208, 104–107.Google Scholar
Fisher, Irving. 1937. “Note on a Short-Cut Method for Calculating Distributed Lags.” Bulletin de l'Institut International de Statistique 29: 323–27. Reprinted in The Works of Irving Fisher, Vol. 8, 1997.Google Scholar
Fisher, Irving. 1940. “The Velocity of Circulation of Money.” Report of the Sixth Annual Research Conference, Colorado Springs, 1940, Chicago: Cowles Commission for Research in Economics, pp. 55–58.Google Scholar
Fisher, Irving. 1946. “Velocity of Circulation of Money.” Econometrica 14 (04): 178–180.Google Scholar
Fisher, Irving. 1947. “The Statistics of the Velocity of Circulation of Money.” Econometrica 15 (04): 173–76.Google Scholar
Fisher, Irving. 1997. The Works of Irving Fisher, 14 volumes, edited by Barber, William J., assisted by Robert W. Dimand and Kevin Foster, consulting editor James Tobin. London: Pickering & Chatto.Google Scholar
Friedman, Milton. 1972. “Have Monetary Policies Failed?” American Economic Review 62 (05): 10–18.Google Scholar
Friedman, Milton and Schwartz, Anna J.. 1963. A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press for National Bureau of Economic Research.Google Scholar
Harris, Seymour E., ed. 1947. The New Economics. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Humphrey, Thomas M. 1997. “Fisher and Wicksell on the Quantity Theory.” Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Economic Quarterly 83 (Fall): 71–90.Google Scholar
Humphrey, Thomas M. 1999. “Irving Fisher and Knut Wicksell: Different Interpretations of the Quantity Theory?” In Loef, Hans-E. and Monissen, Hans G., eds. The Economics of Irving Fisher: Reviewing the Scientific Work of a Great Economist. Cheltenham, UK, and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, pp. 59–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keynes, John Maynard. 1936. The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Kinley, David. 1910a. “Professor Fisher's Formula for Estimating the Velocity of the Circulation of Money.” Quarterly Publications of the American Statistical Association 12 (03): 28–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kinley, David. 1910b. The Use of Credit Instruments in Payments in the United States. Washington, DC: National Monetary Commission, 61st Congress, 2nd Session, Document No. 399.Google Scholar
Kinley, David. 1913. “Objections to a Monetary Standard Based on Index Numbers.” American Economic Review 3 (03): 1–19.Google Scholar
Klein, Lawrence R. 1946. The Keynesian Revolution. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Laidler, David. 1991. The Golden Age of the Quantity Theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Landry, Adolphe. 1905. “La rapidité de la circulation monétaire.” Revue d'Economie Politique 19 (fevrier): 155–74.Google Scholar
Loef, Hans-E. and Monissen, Hans G., eds. 1999. The Economics of Irving Fisher: Reviewing the Scientific Work of a Great Economist. Cheltenham, UK, and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marget, Arthur W. 1932. “The Statistical Measurement of the ‘Velocity of Circulation of Goods’.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 47 (11): 1–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marget, Arthur W. 1938–1942. The Theory of Prices, 2 volumes. New York: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
McCallum, Bennett T. and Goodfriend, Marvin S.. 1988. “Theoretical Analysis of the Demand for Money.” Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Economic Review 74: 16–24.Google Scholar
Moggridge, D. E. 1995. “The Diffusion of the Keynesian Revolution: The Young and the Graduate Schools.” In Cottrell, Allin F. and Lawlor, Michael S., eds., New Perspectives on Keynes, Annual Supplement to History of Political Economy 27. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 223–41.Google Scholar
Patinkin, Don. 1993. “Irving Fisher and His Compensated Dollar Plan.” Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Economic Quarterly 79 (Summer): 1–33.Google Scholar
Roos, Charles F. 1934. Dynamic Economics. Bloomington, IN: Principia Press, Cowles Commission Monograph No. 1.Google Scholar
Sasuly, Max. 1947. “Irving Fisher and Social Science.” Econometrica 15 (10): 255–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Selden, Richard T. 1956. “Monetary Velocity in the United States.” In Friedman, Milton, ed., Studies in the Quantity Theory of Money. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 179–257.Google Scholar
Steindl, Frank G. 1993. “Yale and the Monetary Interpretation of the Great Depression.” Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance 33 (Winter): 305–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steindl, Frank G. 1995. Monetary Interpretations of the Great Depression. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Steindl, Frank G. 1997. “Was Fisher a Practicing Quantity Theorist?” Journal of the History of Economic Thought 19 (Fall): 241–60. Reprinted in James M. Buchanan and Bettina Monissen, eds., The Economists' Vision: Essays in Modern Economic Perspectives. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, pp. 209–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steindl, Frank G. 1998. “The Decline of a Paradigm: The Quantity Theory and Recovery in the 1930s.” Journal of Macroeconomics 20 (Fall): 821–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steindl, Frank G. 1999. “Irving Fisher, the Quantity Theory, and the Great Depression.” In Loef, Hans-E. and Monissen, Hans G., eds. The Economics of Irving Fisher: Reviewing the Scientific Work of a Great Economist. Cheltenham, UK, and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, pp. 157–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trescott, Paul B. 1982. “Discovery of the Money-Income Relationship in the United States, 1921–1944.” History of Political Economy 14 (Spring): 65–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warburton, Clark. 1922. “Comments of the Equation of Exchange.” Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference, Indian Economic Association, Patna, pp. 88–105, 109–110.Google Scholar
Warburton, Clark. 1932. The Economic Results of Prohibition. New York: Columbia University Press. Reprinted New York: AMS Press, 1968.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warburton, Clark. 1945. “The Volume of Money and the Price Level between the World Wars.” Journal of Political Economy 53 (June): 150–63. Reprinted in Clark Warburton, Depression, Inflation and Monetary Policy: Selected Papers 1945–53. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, Chapter 6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warburton, Clark. 1946. “Quantity and Frequency of Use of Money in the United States, 1919–1945.” Journal of Political Economy 54 (10): 436–50. Reprinted in Clark Warburton, Depression, Inflation and Monetary Policy: Selected Papers 1945–53. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, Chapter 7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warburton, Clark. 1948a “Monetary Velocity and Monetary Policy.” Review of Economics and Statistics 30 (11): 304–14. Reprinted in Clark Warburton, Depression, Inflation and Monetary Policy: Selected Papers 1945–53. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, Chapter 12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warburton, Clark. 1948b. “Index Numbers of the Elements of the Equation of Exchange.” Joint session of Econometric Society and American Statistical Association, December 28; abstract in Econometrica 17 (April 1949): 176; full paper in Clark Warburton, Depression, Inflation and Monetary Policy: Selected Papers 1945–53. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, Chapter 8.Google Scholar
Warburton, Clark. 1949. “The Secular Trend in Monetary Velocity.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 63 (02): 68–91. Reprinted in Clark Warburton, Depression, Inflation and Monetary Policy: Selected Papers 1945–53. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, Chapter 9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warburton, Clark. 1966. Depression, Inflation and Monetary Policy: Selected Papers 1945–53. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.Google Scholar
Warburton, Clark. 1981. “Monetary Disequilibrium Theory in the First Half of the Twentieth Century.” History of Political Economy 13 (Summer): 285–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar