Retrospectives: Irving Fisher's Appreciation and Interest (1896) and the Fisher Relation

Robert Dimand and Rebeca Gomez Betancourt

Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2012, vol. 26, issue 4, 185-96

Abstract: Irving Fisher's monograph Appreciation and Interest (1896) proposed his famous equation showing expected inflation as the difference between nominal interest and real interest rates. In addition, he drew attention to insightful remarks and numerical examples scattered through the earlier literature, and he derived results ranging from the uncovered interest arbitrage parity condition between currencies to the expectations theory of the term structure of interest rates. As J. Bradford DeLong wrote in this journal (Winter 2000), "The story of 20th century macroeconomics begins with Irving Fisher" and specifically with Appreciation and Interest because "the transformation of the quantity theory of money into a tool for making quantitative analyses and predictions of the price level, inflation, and interest rates was the creation of Irving Fisher." I discuss the message of Appreciation and Interest, and assess how original he was.

JEL-codes: B13 B31 E31 E43 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
Note: DOI: 10.1257/jep.26.4.185
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Working Paper: Retrospectives: Irving Fisher's "Appreciation and interest" (1896) and the Fisher relation (2012)
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