Wieser is renowned for two main works, Natural Value, which carefully details the alternative-cost doctrine and the theory of imputation, and his Social Economics (1914). In Natural Value von Wieser introduced the theory of imputation and the alternative-cost doctrine, and is credited with the concepts that became known as marginal utility. The Opportunity Cost Theory is considered a valuable contribution from Weiser. His economic distinction between public goods and private goods is still used by economists as one of the main elements of the concept of marginal utility.

Friedrich Freiherr von Wieser was an early (so-called "first generation") economist of the Austrian School of economics. Born in Vienna, the son of Privy Councillor Leopold von Wieser, a high official in the war ministry, he first trained in sociology and law. In 1872, the year he took his degree, he encountered Austrian-school founder Carl Menger's Grundsätze and switched his interest to economic theory. Wieser held posts at the universities of Vienna and Prague until succeeding Menger in Vienna in 1903, where, with brother-in-law Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, he shaped the next generation of Austrian economists including Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek and Joseph Schumpeter in the late 1890s and early 20th century. He was the Austrian Minister of Commerce from August 30, 1917 to November 11, 1918.