Fritz Machlup was an Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n-American economist

Economist

An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...

. He was notable for being one of the first economists to examine knowledge

Knowledge

Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something unknown, which can include information, facts, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education. It can refer to the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject...

 as an economic resource.

Born in Wiener-Neustadt, he earned his doctorate at the University of Vienna

University of Vienna

The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...

. He fled Nazi

Nazism

Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

 Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 for the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 in 1933 and became a US citizen in 1940. Machlup's key work was The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States (1962), which is credited with popularizing the concept of the information society

Information society

The aim of the information society is to gain competitive advantage internationally through using IT in a creative and productive way. An information society is a society in which the creation, distribution, diffusion, use, integration and manipulation of information is a significant economic,...

. Shortly before his death he completed the third in a series of ten planned volumes collectively called Knowledge: Its Creation, Distribution, and Economic Significance. Machlup is also credited with forming the Bellagio Group in the early 1960s. This group was the direct predecessor of the influential Washington-based financial advisory body, the Group of Thirty

Group of Thirty

The Group of Thirty, often abbreviated to G30, is an international body of leading financiers and academics which aims to deepen understanding of economic and financial issues and to examine consequences of decisions made in the public and private sectors related to these issues...

, which he joined in 1979.

Major works

• Die Goldkernwährung, 1925. (dissertation under 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:...
  
  )
• "Transfer and Price Effects", 1930, ZfN.
• The Stock Market, Credit and Capital Formation, 1931. (online e-book)
• "The Liquidity of Short-Term Capital", 1932, Economica
  Economica
  Economica is a peer-reviewed academic journal of economics published on behalf of the London School of Economics by Wiley-Blackwell. It was established in 1934...
  
  .
• "A Note on Fixed Costs", 1934, 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...
  
  (QJE).
• "Professor Knight and the Period of Production", 1935, Journal of Political Economy
  Journal of Political Economy
  The Journal of Political Economy is an academic journal run by economists at the University of Chicago and published every two months by the University of Chicago Press. The journal publishes articles in both theoretical economics and empirical economics...
  
  (JPE).
• "The Commonsense of the Elasticity of Substitution", 1935, Review of Economic Studies
  Review of Economic Studies
  The Review of Economic Studies is a peer-reviewed academic journal in economics. It was established in 1933 and is published by Wiley-Blackwell. It is the eighth-ranked economics journal in overall impact according to the ranking of Kalaitzidakis et al...
  
  (RES).
• "The Rate of Interest as Cost Factor and as a Capitalization Factor", 1935, 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...
  
  (AER).
• "Why Bother with Methodology?", 1936, Economica.
• "On the Meaning of Marginal Product", 1937, Explorations in Economics.
• "Monopoly and Competition: A clarification of market positions", 1937, AER.
• "Evaluation of Practical Significance of the Theory of Monopolistic Competition", 1939, AER.
• "Period Analysis and Multiplier Theory", 1939, QJE.
• "The Theory of Foreign Exchange", 1939–40, Economica.
• "Eight Questions on Gold", 1941, AER.
• "Forced or Induced Savings: An exploration into its synonyms and homonyms", 1943, Review of Economics and Statistics
  Review of Economics and Statistics
  The Review of Economics and Statistics is a peer-reviewed scientific journal specializing in applied quantitative economics, now called econometrics. It was founded in 1917 and first published as The Review of Economic Statistics in 1919...
  
  (REStat).
• International Trade and the National Income Multiplier, 1943. (online e-book)
• "Marginal Analysis and Empirical Research", 1946, AER.
• "A Rejoinder to an Anti-Marginalist", 1947, AER.
• "Monopolistic Wage Determination as a Part of the General Problem of Monopoly", 1947, in Wage Determination and the Economics of Liberalism.
• "Elasticity Pessimism in International Trade", 1950, Economia Internazionale.
• "Three Concepts of the Balance of Payments and the So-Called Dollar Shortage", 1950, The Economic Journal (EJ).
• "Schumpeter's Economic Methodology", 1951, REStat.
• The Political Economy of Monopoly, 1952 (online e-book).
• "The Characteristics and Classification of Oligopoly", 1952, Kyklos.
• The Economics of Sellers' Competition, 1952 (online e-book).
• "Dollar Shortage and Disparities in the Growth of Productivity", 1954, Scottish JPE.
• "The Problem of Verification in Economics", 1955, Southern EJ.
• "Characteristics and Types of Price Discrimination", 1955, in Stigler, editor, Business Concentration and Price Policies.
• "Relative Prices and Aggregate Spending in the Analysis of Devaluation", 1955, AER.
• "The Inferiority Complex of the Social Sciences", 1956, in Sennholz, editor, On Freedom and Free Enterprise.
• "The Terms-of-Trade Effects of Devaluation upon Real Income and the Balance of Trade", 1956, Kyklos.
• "Professor Hicks' Revision of Demand Theory", 1957, AER.
• "Disputes, Paradoxes and Dilemmas Concerning Economic Development", 1957, RISE.
• "Equilibrium and Disequilibrium: Misplaced concreteness and disguised politics", 1958, EJ.
• "Can There Be Too Much Research?", 1958, Science
  Science (journal)
  Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is one of the world's top scientific journals....
  
  .
• "Structure and Structural Change: Weaselwords and jargon", 1958, ZfN.
• "The Optimum Lag of Imitation Behind Innovation", 1958, Festskrift til Frederik Zeuthen.
• "Statics and Dynamics: Kaleidoscopic words", 1959, Southern EJ.
• Micro and Macro-Economics: Contested boundaries and claims of superiority, 1960.
• "Operational Concepts and Mental Constructs in Model and Theory Formation", 1960, GdE.
• "The Supply of Inventors and Inventions", 1960, WWA.
• "Another View of Cost-Push and Demand-Pull Inflation", 1960, REStat.
• "Are the Social Sciences Really Inferior?", 1961, Southern EJ.
• The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States, 1962.
• Essays in Economic Semantics, 1963.
• "Why Economists Disagree", 1964, Proceedings of APS.
• International Payments, Debts and Gold, 1964.
• "The Cloakroom Rule of International Reserve Creation and Resources Transfer", 1965, QJE.
• "Adjustment, Compensatory Correction and Financing of Imbalances in International Payments", 1965, in Baldwin et al., Trade, Growth and the Balance of Payments.
• "The Need for Monetary Reserves", 1966, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro
  Banca Nazionale del Lavoro
  Banca Nazionale del Lavoro SpA is an Italian banking firm. Founded in 1913 as Istituto di Credito per la Cooperazione, it was nationalized in 1929. It was re-privatized and listed on the Milan Stock Exchange in 1998, before being acquired by French banking group BNP Paribas in 2006...
  
  , Quarterly Review (BNLQR).
• "Operationalism and Pure Theory in Economics", in Krupp, editor, The Structure of Economics.
• "Corporate Management, National Interest and Behavioral Theory", 1967, JPE.
• "Theories of the Firm: Marginalist, behavioral and managerial", 1967, AER.
• "If Matter Could Talk", 1969, in Morgenbesser et al., editors, Philosophy, Science and Methodology.
• "Liberalism and Choice of Freedoms", 1969, in Streissler et al., editors, Roads to Freedom: Essays in honor of Friedrich A. von Hayek.
• "Eurodollar Creation: A mystery story", 1970, BNLQR.
• "Homo Oeconomicus and His Class Mates", 1970, in Natanson, editor, Phenomenology and Social Reality.
• "The Universal Bogey", 1972, in Preston and Corry, editors, Essays in Honor of Lord Robbins.
• "Friedrich von Hayek's Contributions to Economics", 1974, Swedish JE.
• "A History of Thought on Economic Integration", 1977, Columbia University Press
  Columbia University Press
  Columbia University Press is a university press based in New York City, and affiliated with Columbia University. It is currently directed by James D. Jordan and publishes titles in the humanities and sciences, including the fields of literary and cultural studies, history, social work, sociology,...
  
  .

External links

• The Fritz Machlup papers at the Hoover Institution Archives.
• The Mont Pelerin Society records at the Hoover Institution Archives.