Individuals decide what the most marketable good is for use as a medium of exchange. “Man himself is the beginning and the end of every economy,” Menger wrote, and so it is with deciding what is to be traded as money. "Money has not been generated by law. In its origin it is a social, and not a state institution. Sanction by the authority of the state is a notion alien to it. " This is the first time this essay has been in print in more than a century![Mises.org]

    In 1892's Mathematical Investigations in the Theory of Value and Prices and 1896's Appreciation and Interest, Fisher explores: . how the numbers of consumers and the numbers of available commodities are more mysterious than they seem at first glance . what happens when production and consumption are examined jointly . how commodities influence one another . the relationship between appreciation and debt . formulas for varying rates of interest and appreciation . the impacts of zero and negative interest . and much more. American economist IRVING FISHER (1867-1947) was professor of political economy at Yale University. Among his many books are The Rate of Interest (1907), Why Is the Dollar Shrinking? A Study in the High Cost of Living (1914), Booms and Depressions (1932), and The Purchasing Power of Money (1912).