Friedrich von Wieser

"Wieser is usually credited with the idea that the cost of any economic decision is the next best alternative foregone in making that decision. In addition, Wieser – following Menger – saw the production process as unfolding through time where value flows up from lower-order goods to the higher-order goods used in producing them, and a stream of goods and services flows down from high-order goods to the lower-order goods we consume. The process of deriving the value of producer goods from the value of the resulting consumer goods is referred to as imputation. Hayek’s early work in technical economics was precisely on this issue and it is through studying this process of imputation that he became sensitised to the misleading influence of equilibrium theorising with regard to the complexity of this economic adjustment process through time."