The impact of Fisher's Purchasing Power of Money in the German Language Area

Abstract

The paper focuses on the reception of Fisher's Purchasing Power of Money in the German language area. Despite widespread hostility of German economists to quantity theory, it was Germany where Wicksell's Interest and Prices was published in 1898, and the first foreign language translation of Fisher's book appeared in 1916. The hyperinflation in the early 1920s contributed to a greater interest in Fisher's approach. Among those economists who took the equation of exchange not only as a heuristic device, but also made some notable contributions themselves were Schumpeter, Marschak and Neisser.