Irving Fisher

Irving Fisher

Irving Fisher (February 27, 1867 – April 29, 1947) was an American economist, statistician, inventor, eugenicist and progressive social campaigner. He was one of the earliest American neoclassical economists, though his later work on debt deflation has been embraced by the post-Keynesian school. Joseph Schumpeter described him as "the greatest economist the United States has ever produced", an assessment later repeated by James Tobin and Milton Friedman.Fisher made important contributions to utility theory and general equilibrium. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Irving Fisher has received more than 790,930 page views. His biography is available in 38 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 36 in 2019). Irving Fisher is the 56th most popular economist (down from 53rd in 2019), the 743rd most popular biography from United States (down from 729th in 2019) and the 12th most popular American Economist.

Irving Fisher is most famous for his theory of debt deflation. Fisher's theory is that a cycle of debt deflation begins with the over-indebtedness of some economic agents. This leads to a reduction in the demand for goods and services, which in turn leads to lower prices for these goods and services. Fisher's theory is that a cycle of debt deflation begins with the over-indebtedness of some economic agents. This leads to a reduction in the demand for goods and services, which in turn leads to lower prices for these goods and services. The reduction in prices will eventually lead to lower wages and higher unemployment. The lower wages and higher unemployment will lead to further reductions in demand, which will lead to lower prices, and so on.