Fritz Machlup was born in Wiener Neustadt, he became a partner in a paper manufacturing business. He left for the US in 1933 and was a research fellow at the Rockefeller Institute in New York. From 1935 he was professor of economics at the university of Buffalo, from 1947 professor of political economy at Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, and from 1960 professor of economics and international finance at Princeton University. One of his main interests was the expansion of international liquidity. Machlup was president of the American Association of University Professors, 1962-64 and the American Economic Association, 1966. He published many works on economic subjects.