Fritz Machlup (; ; December 15, 1902 – January 30, 1983) was an Austrian-American economist who was president of the International Economic Association from 1971 to 1974. He was one of the first economists to examine knowledge as an economic resource, and is credited with popularizing the concept of the information society.
Early life and career
He was born to Jewish parents in Wiener-Neustadt, Austria, near Vienna; his father was a businessman who owned two factories that manufactured cardboard. Machlup earned his doctorate at the University of Vienna. In 1933, he received a Rockefeller scholarship for the US and in 1935 became professor at the University of Buffalo. After the Nazi seizure of his homeland Austria in 1938, Machlup stayed in the United States and became a US citizen in 1940.
Machlup's key work was The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States (1962), which is credited with popularizing the concept of the information society.
Machlup was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1961 and the American Philosophical Society in 1963. He was president of the International Economic Association from 1971 to 1974.
Shortly before his death he completed the third in a series of ten planned volumes collectively called Knowledge: Its Creation, Distribution, and Economic Significance.
Machlup is also credited with forming the Bellagio Group in the early 1960s. This group was the direct predecessor of the influential Washington-based financial advisory body, the Group of Thirty, which he joined in 1979.