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Irving Fisher

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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Irving Ramsay Wiles

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"IRVING FISHER (1867-), American economist, was born at Saugerties, N.Y., Feb. 27 1867. He studied at Yale (A.B. 1888), Berlin, and Paris. He at first taught mathematics at Yale; but in 1895 was made assistant professor of political economy, and in 1898 professor. He was editor of the Yale Review, 1896-1910. He served as chairman of many commissions dealing with public health, prohibition, and labour. An authority on money inflation, he proposed that the purchasing power of the dollar be stabilized ( see Dollar Stabilization). His plan was to replace coined gold dollars by " gold bullion dollar certificates " which should command such weight of gold bullion as might legally be declared to constitute a dollar at that particular time. The weight of this ideal gold dollar would be adjusted at intervals in accordance with its power to purchase commodities as shown by the " index number " of prices.

His writings include: Mathematical Investigations in the Theory of Value and Prices (1892); Elements of Geometry (with A. W. Phillips, 1896); A Brief Introduction to the Infinitesimal Calculus (1897); The Nature of Capital and Income (1906); The Rate of Interest 0907); National Vitality (1909); The Purchasing Power of Money (1911); Elementary Principles of Economics (1913); Why is the Dollar Shrinking? (1914) and Stabilizing the Dollar (1919).