Frank Fetter (1863 - 1949)

Frank Fetter (1863-1949)

Frank Fetter was born on this date 149 year ago. Fetter was an American "Austrian" economist who made important contributions to the theory of interest and the entrepreneur in between the two world wars. Yet, he is one of the less well-known economists in the causal-realist tradition. I encourage you to learn more of the man had his work by reading Jeffrey Herbener's biographical article on Fetter that appears in Great Austrian Economists. 

As Herbener writes,

In the period between the founders of the Austrian school (Menger, Böhm-Bawerk, and Wieser) and its next generation (led by Mises and Hayek), Frank Albert Fetter was the standard bearer of the Austrian tradition. [See the Fetter Bibliography] His 1904 treatise, Principles of Economics, constructed a general theory of economics in the Austrian tradition that went unsurpassed until Ludwig von Mises's treatise of 1940, Nationaloekonomie. Yet Fetter, an American Austrian long before the interwar migration from Austria, has not received due recognition for his many contributions to the tradition.

In light of the important of Fetter's contributions to economics, it was heartening to see two papers delivered at the most recent Austrian Student Scholars Conference deal in a serious way with some of Fetter's economic theory.