Frank Fetter
Encyclopedia
Frank Albert Fetter was an American
economist of the Austrian School
. Fetter's treatise, The Principles of Economics, contributed to an increased American interest in the Austrian School, including the theories of Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
, Friedrich von Wieser
, Ludwig von Mises
and Friedrich Hayek
.
Fetter notably debated Alfred Marshall
, presenting a theoretical reassessment of land as capital. Fetter's arguments have been credited with prompting mainstream economists to abandon the Georgist
idea "that land is a unique factor of production and hence that there is any special need for a special theory of ground rent...." A proponent of the subjective theory of value
, Fetter emphasized the importance of time preference
and rebuffed Irving Fisher
for abandoning the pure time preference theory of interest that Fisher had earlier espoused in his 1907 book, The Rate of Interest.
to a Quaker family during the height of the American Civil War
. Fetter proved an able student as a youth, as demonstrated by his acceptance to Indiana University
in 1879 when he was only sixteen years old. At Indiana, he joined the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity. Fetter was on track to graduate with the class of 1883, but left college to run his family's bookstore upon news of his father's declining health. Working in the bookstore offered an opportunity for the young man to acquaint himself with some of the economic ideas that would later prove formative. Chief among the intellectual influences Fetter encountered at this time was Henry George
's Progress and Poverty (1879).
After eight years, Fetter returned to academia and finally completed his B.A.
in 1891. In 1892, Jeremiah W. Jenks
—who had taught Fetter at Indiana University—acquired a teaching position at Cornell University
at the new President White School of History and Political Science and subsequently secured a fellowship for Fetter at that institution. Fetter completed his Master of Philosophy
degree the same year. Jenks then convinced Fetter to study, as Jenks himself had, under Johannes Conrad
at the Sorbonne
in Paris, France. Fetter earned his Ph.D.
in 1894 from the University of Halle in Germany, where he wrote his doctoral dissertation, a critique of Malthusian population theory.
After earning his doctoral degree, Fetter accepted an instructorship at Cornell, but quickly left after being offered a position as a professor at Indiana University. In 1898, Stanford University
lured him away from Indiana, but Fetter resigned from Stanford three years later over a dispute regarding academic freedom
. After leaving Stanford in 1901, Fetter went back to Cornell, where he remained for ten years. In 1911, he again found himself in professional transition, accepting the position of chairman in an interdisciplinary department at Princeton University
which incorporated history
, politics
, and economics. Fetter was the first chairman of Princeton University's Department of Economics and Social institutions.
Despite his ideological proximity and personal rapport with eminent Austrian School economists such as Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
and Friedrich von Wieser
, as well as his favorable reviews of works by Ludwig von Mises
and F.A. Hayek, Fetter referred to himself, Thorstein Veblen
, and Herbert J. Davenport
more specifically as being members of the "American Psychological School." The appellation "Psychological School" is now generally considered to be synonymous with "Austrian School
."
Fetter was a staunch opponent of Franklin D. Roosevelt
's plan to end the gold standard
and worked with other economists in lobbying against the move to a fiat currency. As some indication of Fetter's role in these efforts,
Fetter participated in a notable debate with English
economist Alfred Marshall
, both through his 1904 Principles of Economics and a number of journal articles in the American Economic Association
's journals and in the Quarterly Journal of Economics
. He contested Marshall's position that land is theoretically distinct from capital. Fetter argued that such a distinction was impractical, stating that,
Fetter's stand on this issue further led him to oppose Georgist
ideas like the land value tax
. Mark Blaug
, a specialist in the history of economic thought, credits Fetter and John Bates Clark
with influencing mainstream economists to abandon the idea "that land is a unique factor of production and hence that there is any special need for a special theory of ground rent.... This is in fact the basis of all the attacks on Henry George by contemporary economists and certainly the fundamental reason why professional economists increasingly ignored him."
Fetter believed in the subjective theory of value
, and thus supported a pure time preference
theory of interest
. Richard Ebeling
wrote that Fetter "constructed a consistent theory of value, price, cost, and production in the context of emphasizing the time-valuational element in all consumption and production choices." According to Jeffrey Herbener, Fetter asserted that "just as the price of each consumer good is determined solely by subjective value, the rate of interest is determined solely by time preference."
Likewise, Herbener explains, this led Fetter to also conclude that "[t]he rental price of each producer good is imputed
to it by entrepreneurial demand and is equal to its discounted marginal value
product. The capital value of each durable good is equal to the discounted value of its future rents." Fetter's contribution to the Austrian subjectivist tradition, then, is that he "showed how this uniform, subjective theory of value implies the demise of socialist
theories of labor exploitation, Ricardian
theories of rent, and productivity theories of interest."
for abandoning the pure time preference theory of interest that Fisher had earlier espoused in his 1907 book, The Rate of Interest, a tome which had heavily influenced Fetter. As Murray Rothbard
recounts, upon further review of Fisher's earlier work,
, and he was made president of the American Economic Association in 1913. Additional honorary doctoral degrees were conferred on Fetter by Occidental College
in 1930 and Indiana University
in 1934. He was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
and a member of the American Philosophical Society
. In 1927, he was awarded the Karl Menger
Medal by the Austrian Economic Society.
Fetter's treatise, Principles of Economics (1904), has been described by Herbener as "unsurpassed until Ludwig von Mises
's treatise of 1940, Nationaloekonomie." In Rothbard's preface to the 1977 edition of Fetter's Capital, Interest, and Rent, he notes that he was first introduced to Fetter's work via a citation in Mises' Human Action
and describes Fetter's views on interest and rent as being "Austrian" and influential on his own views.
Upon Fetter's death in 1949, J. Douglas Brown, who would later be named Provost of Princeton University, wrote a "Memorial" to Fetter for the American Economic Review
. He opened the tribute with the announcement that "with the death of Frank Albert Fetter the great company of American economists has suffered an irreparable loss."
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
economist of the Austrian School
Austrian School
The Austrian School of economics is a heterodox school of economic thought. It advocates methodological individualism in interpreting economic developments , the theory that money is non-neutral, the theory that the capital structure of economies consists of heterogeneous goods that have...
. Fetter's treatise, The Principles of Economics, contributed to an increased American interest in the Austrian School, including the theories of Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
Eugen Ritter von Böhm-Bawerk was an Austrian economist who made important contributions to the development of the Austrian School of economics.-Biography:...
, Friedrich von Wieser
Friedrich von Wieser
Friedrich Freiherr von Wieser was an early member of the Austrian School of economics. Born in Vienna, the son of Privy Councillor Leopold von Wieser, a high official in the war ministry he first trained in sociology and law...
, Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises was an Austrian economist, philosopher, and classical liberal who had a significant influence on the modern Libertarian movement and the "Austrian School" of economic thought.-Biography:-Early life:...
and Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich August Hayek CH , born in Austria-Hungary as Friedrich August von Hayek, was an economist and philosopher best known for his defense of classical liberalism and free-market capitalism against socialist and collectivist thought...
.
Fetter notably debated Alfred Marshall
Alfred Marshall
Alfred Marshall was an Englishman and one of the most influential economists of his time. His book, Principles of Economics , was the dominant economic textbook in England for many years...
, presenting a theoretical reassessment of land as capital. Fetter's arguments have been credited with prompting mainstream economists to abandon the Georgist
Henry George
Henry George was an American writer, politician and political economist, who was the most influential proponent of the land value tax, also known as the "single tax" on land...
idea "that land is a unique factor of production and hence that there is any special need for a special theory of ground rent...." A proponent of the subjective theory of value
Subjective theory of value
The subjective theory of value is an economic theory of value that identifies worth as being based on the wants and needs of the members of a society, as opposed to value being inherent to an object....
, Fetter emphasized the importance of time preference
Time preference
In economics, time preference pertains to how large a premium a consumer places on enjoyment nearer in time over more remote enjoyment....
and rebuffed Irving Fisher
Irving Fisher
Irving Fisher was an American economist, inventor, and health campaigner, and one of the earliest American neoclassical economists, though his later work on debt deflation often regarded as belonging instead to the Post-Keynesian school.Fisher made important contributions to utility theory and...
for abandoning the pure time preference theory of interest that Fisher had earlier espoused in his 1907 book, The Rate of Interest.
Early life and education
Frank Fetter was born in Peru, IndianaPeru, Indiana
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 12,994 people, 5,410 households, and 3,397 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,815.5 people per square mile . There were 5,943 housing units at an average density of 1,287.7 per square mile...
to a Quaker family during the height of the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. Fetter proved an able student as a youth, as demonstrated by his acceptance to Indiana University
Indiana University
Indiana University is a multi-campus public university system in the state of Indiana, United States. Indiana University has a combined student body of more than 100,000 students, including approximately 42,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University Bloomington campus and approximately 37,000...
in 1879 when he was only sixteen years old. At Indiana, he joined the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity. Fetter was on track to graduate with the class of 1883, but left college to run his family's bookstore upon news of his father's declining health. Working in the bookstore offered an opportunity for the young man to acquaint himself with some of the economic ideas that would later prove formative. Chief among the intellectual influences Fetter encountered at this time was Henry George
Henry George
Henry George was an American writer, politician and political economist, who was the most influential proponent of the land value tax, also known as the "single tax" on land...
's Progress and Poverty (1879).
After eight years, Fetter returned to academia and finally completed his B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
in 1891. In 1892, Jeremiah W. Jenks
Jeremiah Jenks
Jeremiah Whipple Jenks, Ph.D., LL.D. was an American economist and educator, born at Saint Clair, Michigan. He graduated from the University of Michigan in 1878, studied for several years in Germany, taking his doctorate from the University of Halle in 1885, and after his return to the United...
—who had taught Fetter at Indiana University—acquired a teaching position at Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
at the new President White School of History and Political Science and subsequently secured a fellowship for Fetter at that institution. Fetter completed his Master of Philosophy
Master of Philosophy
The Master of Philosophy is a postgraduate research degree.An M.Phil. is a lesser degree than a Doctor of Philosophy , but in many cases it is considered to be a more senior degree than a taught Master's degree, as it is often a thesis-only degree. In some instances, an M.Phil...
degree the same year. Jenks then convinced Fetter to study, as Jenks himself had, under Johannes Conrad
Johannes Conrad
Johannes Conrad was a German political economist. Johannes Conrad was a Professor of economics in Halle , Prussian Germany. He was a co-founder of the important conservative Verein für Sozialpolitik in 1872...
at the Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
in Paris, France. Fetter earned his Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
in 1894 from the University of Halle in Germany, where he wrote his doctoral dissertation, a critique of Malthusian population theory.
Professional life
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
lured him away from Indiana, but Fetter resigned from Stanford three years later over a dispute regarding academic freedom
Academic freedom
Academic freedom is the belief that the freedom of inquiry by students and faculty members is essential to the mission of the academy, and that scholars should have freedom to teach or communicate ideas or facts without being targeted for repression, job loss, or imprisonment.Academic freedom is a...
. After leaving Stanford in 1901, Fetter went back to Cornell, where he remained for ten years. In 1911, he again found himself in professional transition, accepting the position of chairman in an interdisciplinary department at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
which incorporated history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
, politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
, and economics. Fetter was the first chairman of Princeton University's Department of Economics and Social institutions.
Despite his ideological proximity and personal rapport with eminent Austrian School economists such as Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
Eugen Ritter von Böhm-Bawerk was an Austrian economist who made important contributions to the development of the Austrian School of economics.-Biography:...
and Friedrich von Wieser
Friedrich von Wieser
Friedrich Freiherr von Wieser was an early member of the Austrian School of economics. Born in Vienna, the son of Privy Councillor Leopold von Wieser, a high official in the war ministry he first trained in sociology and law...
, as well as his favorable reviews of works by Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises was an Austrian economist, philosopher, and classical liberal who had a significant influence on the modern Libertarian movement and the "Austrian School" of economic thought.-Biography:-Early life:...
and F.A. Hayek, Fetter referred to himself, Thorstein Veblen
Thorstein Veblen
Thorstein Bunde Veblen, born Torsten Bunde Veblen was an American economist and sociologist, and a leader of the so-called institutional economics movement...
, and Herbert J. Davenport
Herbert J. Davenport
Herbert Joseph Davenport was an American economist of the Austrian School.- Life and career :Born in Vermont, Davenport began his formal career as assistant professor at the University of Chicago in 1902...
more specifically as being members of the "American Psychological School." The appellation "Psychological School" is now generally considered to be synonymous with "Austrian School
Austrian School
The Austrian School of economics is a heterodox school of economic thought. It advocates methodological individualism in interpreting economic developments , the theory that money is non-neutral, the theory that the capital structure of economies consists of heterogeneous goods that have...
."
Fetter was a staunch opponent of Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
's plan to end the gold standard
Gold standard
The gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is a fixed mass of gold. There are distinct kinds of gold standard...
and worked with other economists in lobbying against the move to a fiat currency. As some indication of Fetter's role in these efforts,
In January 1933, a letter was sent to the president-elect, urging him not only to lower tariff barriers to revive international trade, but to maintain the gold standard "unflinchingly." The letter was signed by a number of prominent "traditional" economists, headed by the American "Austrian," Frank A. Fetter, of Princeton.
Land as capital
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
economist Alfred Marshall
Alfred Marshall
Alfred Marshall was an Englishman and one of the most influential economists of his time. His book, Principles of Economics , was the dominant economic textbook in England for many years...
, both through his 1904 Principles of Economics and a number of journal articles in the American Economic Association
American Economic Association
The American Economic Association, or AEA, is a learned society in the field of economics, headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. It publishes one of the most prestigious academic journals in economics: the American Economic Review...
's journals and in the Quarterly Journal of Economics
Quarterly Journal of Economics
The Quarterly Journal of Economics, or QJE, is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Oxford University Press and edited at Harvard University's Department of Economics. Its current editors are Robert J. Barro, Elhanan Helpman and Lawrence F. Katz...
. He contested Marshall's position that land is theoretically distinct from capital. Fetter argued that such a distinction was impractical, stating that,
The notion that it is a simple matter to distinguish between the yield of natural agents and that of improvements is fanciful and confusing.... The objective classification of land and capital as natural and artificial agents is a task that always must transcend the human power of discrimination.
Fetter's stand on this issue further led him to oppose Georgist
Georgism
Georgism is an economic philosophy and ideology that holds that people own what they create, but that things found in nature, most importantly land, belong equally to all...
ideas like the land value tax
Land value tax
A land value tax is a levy on the unimproved value of land. It is an ad valorem tax on land that disregards the value of buildings, personal property and other improvements...
. Mark Blaug
Mark Blaug
Mark Blaug , was a British economist , who has covered a broad range of topics over his long career. In 1955 he received his PhD from Columbia University in New York under the supervision of George Stigler...
, a specialist in the history of economic thought, credits Fetter and John Bates Clark
John Bates Clark
John Bates Clark was an American neoclassical economist. He was one of the pioneers of the marginalist revolution and opponent to the Institutionalist school of economics, and spent most of his career teaching at Columbia University.-Biography:Clark was born and raised in Providence, Rhode...
with influencing mainstream economists to abandon the idea "that land is a unique factor of production and hence that there is any special need for a special theory of ground rent.... This is in fact the basis of all the attacks on Henry George by contemporary economists and certainly the fundamental reason why professional economists increasingly ignored him."
Applications of subjective value theory
Subjective theory of value
The subjective theory of value is an economic theory of value that identifies worth as being based on the wants and needs of the members of a society, as opposed to value being inherent to an object....
, and thus supported a pure time preference
Time preference
In economics, time preference pertains to how large a premium a consumer places on enjoyment nearer in time over more remote enjoyment....
theory of interest
Interest
Interest is a fee paid by a borrower of assets to the owner as a form of compensation for the use of the assets. It is most commonly the price paid for the use of borrowed money, or money earned by deposited funds....
. Richard Ebeling
Richard Ebeling
Richard M. Ebeling is an American libertarian author, and was president of the Foundation for Economic Education from 2003 to 2008....
wrote that Fetter "constructed a consistent theory of value, price, cost, and production in the context of emphasizing the time-valuational element in all consumption and production choices." According to Jeffrey Herbener, Fetter asserted that "just as the price of each consumer good is determined solely by subjective value, the rate of interest is determined solely by time preference."
Likewise, Herbener explains, this led Fetter to also conclude that "[t]he rental price of each producer good is imputed
Imputation (economics)
In economics, the theory of imputation, first expounded by Carl Menger, maintains that factor prices are determined by output prices.This is the opposite of the labor theory of value maintained by classical economists such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo....
to it by entrepreneurial demand and is equal to its discounted marginal value
Marginal value
A marginal value is#a value that holds true given particular constraints,#the change in a value associated with a specific change in some independent variable, whether it be of that variable or of a dependent variable, or...
product. The capital value of each durable good is equal to the discounted value of its future rents." Fetter's contribution to the Austrian subjectivist tradition, then, is that he "showed how this uniform, subjective theory of value implies the demise of socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
theories of labor exploitation, Ricardian
David Ricardo
David Ricardo was an English political economist, often credited with systematising economics, and was one of the most influential of the classical economists, along with Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith, and John Stuart Mill. He was also a member of Parliament, businessman, financier and speculator,...
theories of rent, and productivity theories of interest."
Criticism of Fisher's theory of interest
In "Interest Theories, Old and New" (1914), Fetter criticized Irving FisherIrving Fisher
Irving Fisher was an American economist, inventor, and health campaigner, and one of the earliest American neoclassical economists, though his later work on debt deflation often regarded as belonging instead to the Post-Keynesian school.Fisher made important contributions to utility theory and...
for abandoning the pure time preference theory of interest that Fisher had earlier espoused in his 1907 book, The Rate of Interest, a tome which had heavily influenced Fetter. As Murray Rothbard
Murray Rothbard
Murray Newton Rothbard was an American author and economist of the Austrian School who helped define capitalist libertarianism and popularized a form of free-market anarchism he termed "anarcho-capitalism." Rothbard wrote over twenty books and is considered a centrally important figure in the...
recounts, upon further review of Fisher's earlier work,
...Fetter discovered that the seeds of error were in Fisher's publication of 1907. Fisher had stated that valuations of present and future goods imply a preexisting money rate of interest, thereby suggesting that a pure time-preference explanation of interest involves circular reasoning. By way of contrast, and in the course of explaining his own pure time-preference, or "capitalization," theory of interest, Fetter showed that time valuation is prerequisite to the determination of the market rate of interest.
Reception in academia
In 1909, at the age of forty-six, Fetter was awarded an honorary LL.D. from Colgate UniversityColgate University
Colgate University is a private liberal arts college in Hamilton, New York, USA. The school was founded in 1819 as a Baptist seminary and later became non-denominational. It is named for the Colgate family who greatly contributed to the university's endowment in the 19th century.Colgate has 52...
, and he was made president of the American Economic Association in 1913. Additional honorary doctoral degrees were conferred on Fetter by Occidental College
Occidental College
Occidental College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college located in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1887, Occidental College, or "Oxy" as it is called by students and alumni, is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges on the West Coast...
in 1930 and Indiana University
Indiana University
Indiana University is a multi-campus public university system in the state of Indiana, United States. Indiana University has a combined student body of more than 100,000 students, including approximately 42,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University Bloomington campus and approximately 37,000...
in 1934. He was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
and a member of the American Philosophical Society
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society, founded in 1743, and located in Philadelphia, Pa., is an eminent scholarly organization of international reputation, that promotes useful knowledge in the sciences and humanities through excellence in scholarly research, professional meetings, publications,...
. In 1927, he was awarded the Karl Menger
Carl Menger
Carl Menger was the founder of the Austrian School of economics, famous for contributing to the development of the theory of marginal utility, which contested the cost-of-production theories of value, developed by the classical economists such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo.- Biography :Menger...
Medal by the Austrian Economic Society.
Fetter's treatise, Principles of Economics (1904), has been described by Herbener as "unsurpassed until Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises was an Austrian economist, philosopher, and classical liberal who had a significant influence on the modern Libertarian movement and the "Austrian School" of economic thought.-Biography:-Early life:...
's treatise of 1940, Nationaloekonomie." In Rothbard's preface to the 1977 edition of Fetter's Capital, Interest, and Rent, he notes that he was first introduced to Fetter's work via a citation in Mises' Human Action
Human Action
Human Action: A Treatise on Economics is the magnum opus of the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises. It presents a case for laissez-faire capitalism based on Mises' praxeology, or rational investigation of human decision-making. It rejects positivism within economics...
and describes Fetter's views on interest and rent as being "Austrian" and influential on his own views.
...while reading Fetter's oeuvre in the course of writing my Man, Economy, and StateMan, Economy, and StateMan, Economy, and State: A Treatise on Economic Principles, first published in 1962, is a book on economics by Murray Rothbard, and is one of the most important books in the Austrian School of economics...
... I was struck by the brilliance and consistency of his integrated theory of distribution and by the neglect of Fetter in current histories of economic thought, even by those that are Austrian oriented. For Fetter's systematic theory, while challenging and original (particularly his theories of interest and rent), was emphatically in the Austrian school tradition.
Upon Fetter's death in 1949, J. Douglas Brown, who would later be named Provost of Princeton University, wrote a "Memorial" to Fetter for the American Economic Review
American Economic Review
The American Economic Review is a peer-reviewed academic journal of economics publishing seven issues annually by the American Economic Association. First published in 1911, it is considered one of the most prestigious journals in the field. The current editor-in-chief is Penny Goldberg . The...
. He opened the tribute with the announcement that "with the death of Frank Albert Fetter the great company of American economists has suffered an irreparable loss."
Books
- Versuch einer Bevolkerungslehre ausgehen von einer Kritic des Malthus'schen Bevolkerungsprincips (Translation: "An Essay on Population Doctrine based on a Critique of the Population Principles of Malthus"). Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1894.
- The Principles of Economics. http://mises.org/etexts/fetter.pdf New York: The Century Co., 1905
- Source Book in Economics. New York: The Century Company., 1912.
- Economics, Volume 1: Economic Principles. http://mises.org/books/principles-fetter.pdf New York: The Century Co., 1915.
- Manual of References and Exercices in Economics for Use with, Vol. 1: Economic Principles. New York: The Century Co., 1916.
- Economics, Vol. 2: Modern Economic Problems. http://mises.org/Books/moderneconomicprob.pdf New York: The Century Co., 1916. Revised 2nd edition, 1922.
- Manual of References and Exercices in Economics for Use with, Vol. 2: Modern Economics. New York: The Century Co., 1917.
- Masquerade of Monopoly. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1931.
- Capital, Interest and Rent: Essays in the theory of distribution. http://mises.org/books/capital-fetter.pdf Institute for Humane StudiesInstitute for Humane StudiesThe Institute for Humane Studies is a classical liberal non-profit organization whose stated mission is “to support the achievement of a freer society by discovering and facilitating the development of talented students, scholars, and other intellectuals who share an interest in liberty and in...
. Kansas City: Sheed Andrews and McMeel, Inc., 1977.
Articles
- "Recent Discussion of the Capital Concept" by Frank A. Fetter, Quarterly Journal of Economics, (1900)
External links
- Works by Frank Fetter at the Ludwig von Mises InstituteLudwig von Mises InstituteThe Ludwig von Mises Institute , based in Auburn, Alabama, is a libertarian academic organization engaged in research and scholarship in the fields of economics, philosophy and political economy. Its scholarship is inspired by the work of Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises...
. - Information on Fetter's papers housed at Indiana University.