Frank A. Fetter and ‘Austrian’ Business Cycle Theory

O’Driscoll, Gerald P.

doi:10.1215/00182702-12-4-542

Cited by 3 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…Throughout his career, Fetter was widely regarded as working within the Austrian tradition in economics (Hoxie, 1905;Howard and Kemmerer, 1943). 3 The bulk of Fetter's bestknown work involves capital theory, especially the pure time-preference theory of interest and its implications (Rothbard, 1977;O'Driscoll, 1980;Herbener, 1999). But he complemented and completed these works with detailed discussions of the roles of the capitalist, wage earner, manager, and entrepreneur.…”

Section: Profit and Enterprisementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Frank Albert Fetter has been mostly neglected in the history of economics and management, despite being one of the most prolific and influential American economists of the early 20 th century (O'Driscoll, 1980;Rothbard, 1977, p. 23). 1 In fact, his transition from significance during his lifetime to relative obscurity after his death has even led one biographer to describe him as a "forgotten giant" of the social sciences (Herbener, 1999).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Kemmerer (1943). Gerald P. O'Driscoll (1980) discusses Fetter's reception by historians of economic thought, as well as his relevance for the Austrian school. (Howard and Kemmerer, 1943).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…O'Driscoll (1980) mentions in passing Fetter's use of the Knightian uncertainty concept, but does not explain its meaning or how uncertainty fits in Fetter's system.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Good Judgment, Good Luck: Frank Fetter’s Neglected Theory of Entrepreneurship

McCaffrey

2016

Review of Political Economy

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Frank Fetter's contributions to entrepreneurship and the theory of the firm are usually overlooked, even though his original treatments are relevant to both the history of economic thought and contemporary entrepreneurship research. I highlight three ways Fetter's work adds to our understanding of the entrepreneurial process. First, entrepreneurs direct their enterprises via the careful delegation of authority to managers, thereby maintaining residual control over the firm; similar views were pioneered by Frank Knight and the Austrian economists, who continue to study cognate problems like judgmental decision-making and "proxy-entrepreneurship." Second, Fetter foreshadows Knight's influential distinction between risk and uncertainty, arguing that entrepreneurs bear uncertainty through their investment decisions; however, Fetter adds to Knight's work by explicitly considering the role chance and luck play in entrepreneurial success, a problem still debated in entrepreneurship studies. Third, Fetter argues that scarcity implies the active investment of resources, and thus, the need for entrepreneurship; this view hints at current research on entrepreneurial bricolage, as well as work emphasizing investment rather than opportunity as the defining concept of entrepreneurship. It also provides "microfoundations" for strategic entrepreneurship research.

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Section: Profit and Enterprisementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Kemmerer (1943). Gerald P. O'Driscoll (1980) discusses Fetter's reception by historians of economic thought, as well as his relevance for the Austrian school. (Howard and Kemmerer, 1943).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…O'Driscoll (1980) mentions in passing Fetter's use of the Knightian uncertainty concept, but does not explain its meaning or how uncertainty fits in Fetter's system.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Good Judgment, Good Luck: Frank Fetter’s Neglected Theory of Entrepreneurship

McCaffrey

2016

Review of Political Economy

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“…The similarity between Fetter and the Austrians was observed early in his career (Hoxie, 1905; Whitaker, 1916), and has since become a trope of works studying his ideas (e.g. Dorfman, 1949; Coughlan, 1965; Rothbard, 1977; O'Driscoll, 1980; Herbener, 1999; McCaffrey, 2016). However, despite more than a century of acknowledgment – and apart from a few references to his early writings – none of the research on Fetter actually discusses his personal or professional relationships with the Austrians.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pure theory and progressive liberalism: Frank Fetter and the Austrian economists

McCaffrey¹

2018

Journal of Institutional Economics

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Frank A. Fetter is often classified as an American representative of the Austrian school, yet surprisingly, there is practically no published record of his views of the Austrians or theirs of him, and there is no indication that he ever seriously interacted with them after the First World War. However, Fetter enjoyed many personal and professional relationships with the Austrians, and they shared a reciprocal influence on each other's ideas that deeply influenced their respective research programs. This paper draws on unpublished archival records to explore Fetter's unique place in the history of economics, in particular, his positive and negative interactions with the leading individuals and institutions of the Austrian school. Their half-century of influence sheds light on Fetter and his role in American economics, but also brings to light a wide range of information about the lives, works, and personal relations of the Austrians that have not been included in their biographies or institutional histories.

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The Long Rehabilitation of Frank Fetter

McCaffrey

2021

QJAE

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Economics has long history of “rehabilitations,” including W.H. Hutt’s rehabilitation of Say’s law, and Alfred Marshall’s attempt to rehabilitate David Ricardo. The rehabilitation of Frank A. Fetter should be as important as either of these, especially for economists working in the contemporary Austrian tradition. The historical records reveal that for the last century there has been underway a nearly unbroken series of efforts, especially by Austrian economists, to rehabilitate Fetter’s contributions and use them to revitalize economic theory. This paper relates this history, which chronicles the rise, decline, and rise again of one of the great American economic theorists. Yet crucially, this is not a story about Fetter alone, but also of the fortunes of the Austrian school and its rise, decline, and renaissance.

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Frank A. Fetter and ‘Austrian’ Business Cycle Theory

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Good Judgment, Good Luck: Frank Fetter’s Neglected Theory of Entrepreneurship

Good Judgment, Good Luck: Frank Fetter’s Neglected Theory of Entrepreneurship

Pure theory and progressive liberalism: Frank Fetter and the Austrian economists

The Long Rehabilitation of Frank Fetter

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