A friend of Böhm-Bawerk and Wieser, Frank A. Fetter was the foremost advocate of the Austrian School in the United States. An avid opponent of Marshall and the Marshallian school (e.g. 1902), this Cornell and Princeton economist did his utmost to curb the latter's influence in the United States. Although his life's task was the rewriting of a unified theory of distribution which incorporated all factors under the Austrian conception of capital, Fetter also worked on various other topics - such as welfare and monopoly.
Fetter liked to group himself together with Thorstein Veblen and Cornell colleague, Herbert J. Davenport as the "American Psychological School". Convinced that Thorstein Veblen had effectively destroyed utilitarianism, Fetter appealed to the psychological idea of "volition" and "subjective choice" reminiscent of Pareto's approach without the hedonic pleasure-pain calculus. Subjective choice, however motivated, whether by rational calculation or instinctive impulses, led to valuation. His 1904 Principles sought to recast economic theory along the lines of his unique Veblenian-Austrian views.
Major works of Frank A. Fetter
Resources on Frank Fetter