Nació en Wiener Neustadt en 1902. Obtuvo su doctorado en la Universidad de Viena. En 1933 abandonó la Alemania nazi y emigró a los Estados Unidos. En 1940 adquirió la nacionalidad estadounidense. A principios de los 1960s Machlup formó el Grupo Bellagio,^[1]​ directo predecesor del Grupo de los treinta, al cual se unió en 1979.

Su obra clave es The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States (1962), a través de la cual popularizó el concepto de sociedad de la información. Además, apenas poco antes de su deceso completó Knowledge: Its Creation, Distribution, and Economic Significance, el tercero de una serie de diez volúmenes planeada colectivamente.

• Die Goldkernwährung, 1925. (disertación bajo Ludwig von Mises)
• Transfer and Price Effects, 1930, ZfN
• The Stock Market, Credit and Capital Formation, 1931
• The Liquidity of Short-Term Capital, 1932, Economica
• A Note on Fixed Costs, 1934, Quarterly Journal of Economics (QJE)
• Professor Knight and the Period of Production, 1935, Journal of Political Economy (JPE)
• The Commonsense of the Elasticity of Substitution, 1935, Review of Economic Studies (RES)
• The Rate of Interest as Cost Factor and as a Capitalization Factor, 1935, American Economic Review (AER)
• Why Bother with Methodology?, 1936, Economica
• On the Meaning of Marginal Product, 1937, Explorations in Economics
• Monopoly and Competition: A clarification of market positions, 1937, AER
• Evaluation of Practical Significance of the Theory of Monopolistic Competition, 1939, AER
• Period Analysis and Multiplier Theory, 1939, QJE
• The Theory of Foreign Exchange, 1939-40, Economica
• Eight Questions on Gold, 1941, AER
• Forced or Induced Savings: An exploration into its synonyms and homonyms, 1943, Review of Economics & Statistics (REStat)
• International Trade and the National Income Multiplier, 1943
• Marginal Analysis and Empirical Research, 1946, AER
• A Rejoinder to an Anti-Marginalist, 1947, AER
• Monopolistic Wage Determination as a Part of the General Problem of Monopoly, 1947, in Wage Determination and the Economics of Liberalism
• Elasticity Pessimism in International Trade, 1950, Economia Internazionale
• Three Concepts of the Balance of Payments and the So-Called Dollar Shortage, 1950, The Economic Journal (EJ).
• Schumpeter's Economic Methodology, 1951, REStat.
• The Political Economy of Monopoly, 1952
• The Characteristics and Classification of Oligopoly, 1952, Kyklos
• The Economics of Sellers' Competition, 1952.
• Dollar Shortage and Disparities in the Growth of Productivity, 1954, Scottish JPE
• The Problem of Verification in Economics, 1955, Southern EJ
• Characteristics and Types of Price Discrimination, 1955, in Stigler, editor, Business Concentration and Price Policies
• Relative Prices and Aggregate Spending in the Analysis of Devaluation, 1955, AER
• The Inferiority Complex of the Social Sciences, 1956, in Sennholz, editor, On Freedom and Free Enterprise
• The Terms-of-Trade Effects of Devaluation upon Real Income and the Balance of Trade, 1956, Kyklos
• Professor Hicks' Revision of Demand Theory, 1957, AER
• Disputes, Paradoxes and Dilemmas Concerning Economic Development, 1957, RISE
• Equilibrium and Disequilibrium: Misplaced concreteness and disguised politics, 1958, EJ
• Can There Be Too Much Research?, 1958, Science
• Structure and Structural Change: Weaselwords and jargon, 1958, ZfN
• The Optimum Lag of Imitation Behind Innovation, 1958, Festskrift til Frederik Zeuthen
• Statics and Dynamics: Kaleidoscopic words, 1959, Southern EJ
• Micro and Macro-Economics: Contested boundaries and claims of superiority, 1960
• Operational Concepts and Mental Constructs in Model and Theory Formation, 1960, GdE
• The Supply of Inventors and Inventions, 1960, WWA.
• Another View of Cost-Push and Demand-Pull Inflation, 1960, REStat
• Are the Social Sciences Really Inferior?, 1961, Southern EJ.
• The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States, 1962
• Essays in Economic Semantics, 1963
• Why Economists Disagree, 1964, Proceedings of APS.
• International Payments, Debts and Gold, 1964
• The Cloakroom Rule of International Reserve Creation and Resources Transfer, 1965, QJE
• Adjustment, Compensatory Correction and Financing of Imbalances in International Payments, 1965, in Baldwin et al., Trade, Growth and the Balance of Payments
• The Need for Monetary Reserves, 1966, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review (BNLQR)
• Operationalism and Pure Theory in Economics, in Krupp, editor, The Structure of Economics.
• Corporate Management, National Interest and Behavioral Theory, 1967, JPE
• Theories of the Firm: Marginalist, behavioral and managerial, 1967, AER
• If Matter Could Talk, 1969, in Morgenbesser et al., editors, Philosophy, Science and Methodology
• Liberalism and Choice of Freedoms, 1969, in Streissler et al., editors, Roads to Freedom: Essays in honor of Friedrich A. von Hayek
• Eurodollar Creation: A mystery story, 1970, BNLQR
• Homo Oeconomicus and His Class Mates, 1970, in Natanson, editor, Phenomenology and Social Reality
• The Universal Bogey, 1972, in Preston and Corry, editors, Essays in Honor of Lord Robbins
• Friedrich von Hayek's Contributions to Economics, 1974, Swedish JE
• A History of Thought on Economic Integration, 1977, Columbia University Press

• Vida media del conocimiento
• Caída exponencial del conocimiento

1. ↑ Gottfried Haberler. «Fritz Machlup: In Memoriam». Cato Journal. Cato Institute. Archivado desde el original el 16 de marzo de 2008.