Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 June 2009
The equation of exchange is identified with the name Irving Fisher. Although it is not the quantity theory, a point often made by him, it is the core organizing ingredient for his subsequent quantity theoretic analyses. It has in fact been argued that the quantity theory was central to Fisher's work, that “his fundamental premise and basis for all other analysis and policy prescription was this: money matters and matters most, [that he indeed was] the first of the modern ‘monetarists’” (Allen 1977, p. 563).