Born in Vienna in 1851, after an early training in sociology, he became a prominent and leading member of Carl Menger's early Austrian School - together with Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, his colleague, childhood friend and, brother-in-law.
Wieser and Bohm-Bawerk groomed the next generation of Austrians (which included L.von Mises, F.A. Hayek and J.A. Schumpeter) at Vienna during the late 1890s and early 1900s. Wieser held posts at the universities of Vienna and Prague until being called to succeed Menger in Vienna in 1903. Although famous for his detached Olympian demeanor throughout his life, Wieser eventually entered the Austrian political arena in 1917.
Wieser's two main contributions are the theory of "imputation", establishing that factor prices are determine by output prices (rather than the other way around, as the Classicals had it) and the theory of "alternative cost" or "opportunity cost" as the foundation of value theory -- fundamental "subjectivist" pillars in Neoclassical theory which were being effectively ignored by Marshall and the "real cost" British theorists. In developing these ideas, Wieser can be credited with turning Neoclassical economics firmly towards the study of scarcity and resource allocation - a fixed quantity of resources and unlimited wants - all based on the principle of marginal utility. Menger had initially set this up, but never really extended it to production and factors properly. Wieser's imputation theory allowed that single principle to be applied everywhere. Wieser's theory of alternative cost and Marshall's "real cost" theory came into confrontation quickly - Wicksteed and Edgeworth duelled on a version of this, as later did Robbins, Knight and Viner - but today they can be said to be reconciled (for the most part). This was largely achieved by the insights provided by modern linear programming and general equilibrium theory.
Wieser is renowned for two main works, Natural Value (1889), which carefully details the alternative cost doctrine and the theory of imputation, and his Social Economics (1914), which is an ambitious attempt to apply it to the real world.
Major Works of Friedrich von Wieser
Resources on Friedrich von Wieser