The Swedish economist Knut Wicksell is well known for his contributions to the marginal productivity theory of distribution and the theory of capital and interest, where he tried to create a unified framework from a synthesis of ideas of David Ricardo, Leon Walras and Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk.
Nowadays he is perhaps even better known for his pioneering works in monetary economics, where his approach paved the way for both Austrian and Keynesian economics. It has recently even seen a renaissance in dynamic stochastic general-equilibrium models. Moreover, Wicksell has made a strong contribution to the theory of public finance, giving impetus to the development of welfare economics and public choice. Both as “a pioneer and a follower-up”, Wicksell has thus earned the recognition of an “economist’s economist”, while he “was not only an ingenious scholar, but also a radical political thinker and untiring social reformer of great caliber” (Lindahl 1958: 9).