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This chapter discusses the “seigniorage argument” in favor of public money issuance, according to which public finances could be improved if the state more fully exercised the privilege of money creation, which is, today, largely shared with private banks. This point was made in the 1930s by several proponents of the “100% money” reform scheme, such as Henry Simons of the University of Chicago, Lauchlin Currie of Harvard and Irving Fisher of Yale, who called for a full-reserve requirement in lawful money behind checking deposits. One of their claims was that, by returning all seigniorage profit to the state, such reform would allow a significant reduction of the national debt. In academic debates, however, following a criticism first made by Albert G. Hart of the University of Chicago in 1935, this argument has generally been discarded as wholly illusory. Hart argued that, because the state, under a 100% system, would be likely to pay the banks a subsidy for managing checking accounts, no substantial debt reduction could possibly be expected to follow. The 100% money proponents never answered Hart’s criticism, whose conclusion has often been considered as definitive in the literature. However, a detailed study of the subject reveals that Hart’s analysis itself appears to be questionable on at least two grounds: the first pertains to the sources of the seigniorage benefit, the other to its distribution. This chapter concludes that the “seigniorage argument” of the 100% money authors may not have been entirely unfounded.

This essay puts forward a new interpretation of Irving Fisher that integrates his scientific work with his moral crusades, and places both in the context of his times. The key to the new interpretation is Fisher's book on The Nature of Capital and Income (1906) where he lays out his vision of the economic process and presents his theory of income, neither one of which ever gained acceptance. The new interpretation challenges the standard view of Fisher's scientific work as an anticipation of the post war neoclassical synthesis.

As I write these words, hordes of financial analysts in lower Manhattan and dozens of other locations are hard at work estimating the value and risk of financial derivatives so exotic that, a few decades ago, literally no one could have conceived of them. Many – probably most – of these analysts are “rocket scientists” with graduate degrees in physics, mathematics, or statistics. Using what might have been called “supercomputers” not so long ago, they seek to create composite assets that react in particular, predictable ways to changes in the prices of equity and debt contracts. These attempts to conquer the risk-return tradeoff and to ensure a healthy return in any and all market conditions have yet to succeed completely (as a recent Federal Reserve bailout testifies), but the rocket scientists are still hard at it, seeking to maximize returns while minimizing risk.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how reproductivity (child‐rearing) fits into ethics. It aims to use objectivist ethics (OE) specifically as the framework for considering this.

The approach is conceptual in nature. Economic concepts are used to analyze and extend an ethical issue and the cardinal values within OE, which includes productive purpose, are reviewed.

The paper argues that reproductivity is sufficiently different from productivity to be a separate category. Then using the trader principle, the objectivist case for inheritance, and capital theory, the case is made that reproductivity is required of each person in the same sense that productivity is.

This is an original argument made by the author in Then Athena Said: Unilateral Transfers and the Transformation of Objectivist Ethics. In that work, reproductivity is linked to human capital replacement, depreciation, the sinking fund, and Irving Fisher's conception of standard income. This paper also relates it to permanent income. Also, the conclusions are more inclusive than those in the previous work in that other forms that the replacement of human capital can take in addition to reproduction are considered.

At present, countries are concerned about inflation and the impact of inflation on each country’s economic growth. This inflation has been said by economists that inflation is a phenomenon of currency and currency, which has caused inflation in some countries by their monetary policy. According to the economic theory of Karl Marx, Irving Fisher, Friedman, inflation is caused by a continuous increase in the money supply.

The economic theories of Fisher, Friedman and an econometric model are applied to analyse the relationship between money supply and inflation. Besides, Vietnam’s and China’s research data are also collected in the period of 2012-2016.

It is found out that the continuous increase in the money supply causes inflation in the long-term, but the continuous increase in the money supply growth does not cause inflation in a short time, this was analyzed based on the theory of monetary quantity. Moreover, Chia’s and Vietnam’s correlations of the money supply growth and inflation are 99.1 per cent. These correlations are very close.

Research results show that money supply and inflation are closely related, and the money supply directly affects economic growth. Therefore, the government should have the relevant monetary policy to grow the economy and proposals to make monetary policy, control inflation levels and stimulate economic growth.

This paper examines the monetary thought of Arthur Kitson (1861‐1937) as expressed in his published works and in recently discovered answers he submitted in 1922 to a questionnaire from Thomas Edison, the US inventor.

Both original source material from the Edison Archive and published sources are used to examine the subject.

It is found that Kitson's monetary thought is more orthodox than has previously been claimed by, among others, John Maynard Keynes, and more recently in the economics literature. It is also found that Kitson was the only person to support, without qualification, Edison's plan to reform the US monetary system.

This paper casts a new light on Kitson's monetary thought, showing the influence of Irving Fisher on Kitson. The paper also presents Edison's questionnaire and Kitson's contributory thoughts on a fiat monetary standard that the questionnaire stimulated.

The neoclassical theory of investments, as formulated by Dale Jorgenson (1963, 1967), can be expressed in a fairly straightforward way.¹ Neoclassical formulations such as Jorgenson's were preceded by contributions by many influential economists. Both John Maynard Keynes and Irving Fisher, for example, argued that investments are made until the present value of expected future revenues, at the margin, equals the opportunity cost of capital. This means that investments are made until the net present value is equal to zero.

The lack of a satisfactory theory of personal income distribution is a problem that economists have pondered for most of the twentieth century. In 1912 Irving Fisher wrote: