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Milton Friedman (; July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American economist and statistician who received the 1976
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (), commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics(), is an award in the field of economic sciences adminis ...
for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and the complexity of stabilization policy. With George Stigler, Friedman was among the intellectual leaders of the
Chicago school of economics The Chicago school of economics is a Neoclassical economics, neoclassical Schools of economic thought, school of economic thought associated with the work of the faculty at the University of Chicago, some of whom have constructed and populari ...
, a neoclassical school of economic thought associated with the faculty at the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
that rejected Keynesianism in favor of monetarism before shifting their focus to new classical macroeconomics in the mid-1970s. Several students, young professors and academics who were recruited or mentored by Friedman at Chicago went on to become leading economists, including Gary Becker, Robert Fogel, and Robert Lucas Jr. Friedman's challenges to what he called "naive Keynesian theory" began with his interpretation of consumption, which tracks how consumers spend. He introduced a theory which would later become part of
mainstream economics Mainstream economics is the body of knowledge, theories, and models of economics, as taught by universities worldwide, that are generally accepted by economists as a basis for discussion. Also known as orthodox economics, it can be contrasted to ...
and he was among the first to propagate the theory of consumption smoothing. During the 1960s, he became the main advocate opposing both Marxist and Keynesian government and economic policies, and described his approach (along with mainstream economics) as using "Keynesian language and apparatus" yet rejecting its initial conclusions. He theorized that there existed a natural rate of unemployment and argued that unemployment below this rate would cause inflation to accelerate. He argued that the Phillips curve was in the long run vertical at the "natural rate" and predicted what would come to be known as stagflation. Friedman promoted a macroeconomic viewpoint known as monetarism and argued that a steady, small expansion of the money supply was the preferred policy, as compared to rapid, and unexpected changes. His ideas concerning
monetary policy Monetary policy is the policy adopted by the monetary authority of a nation to affect monetary and other financial conditions to accomplish broader objectives like high employment and price stability (normally interpreted as a low and stable rat ...
, taxation, privatization, and deregulation influenced government policies, especially during the 1980s. His monetary theory influenced the
Federal Reserve The Federal Reserve System (often shortened to the Federal Reserve, or simply the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a series of ...
's
monetary policy Monetary policy is the policy adopted by the monetary authority of a nation to affect monetary and other financial conditions to accomplish broader objectives like high employment and price stability (normally interpreted as a low and stable rat ...
in response to the
2008 financial crisis The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners ...
. After retiring from the University of Chicago in 1977, and becoming
emeritus professor ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some c ...
in economics in 1983, Friedman served as an advisor to Republican U.S. president
Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party a ...
and
Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...
British prime minister
Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013), was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of th ...
. His political philosophy extolled the virtues of a
free market In economics, a free market is an economic market (economics), system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of ...
economic system with minimal government intervention in social matters. In his 1962 book '' Capitalism and Freedom'', Friedman advocated policies such as a volunteer military, freely floating exchange rates, abolition of
medical license A medical license is an occupational license that permits a person to legally practice medicine. In most countries, a person must have a medical license bestowed either by a specified government-approved professional association or a government ...
s, a negative income tax, school vouchers, and opposition to the war on drugs and support for drug liberalization policies. His support for school choice led him to found the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, later renamed EdChoice. Friedman's works cover a broad range of economic topics and public policy issues. His books and essays have had global influence, including in former
communist state A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state in which the totality of the power belongs to a party adhering to some form of Marxism–Leninism, a branch of the communist ideology. Marxism–Leninism was ...
s.Johan Norberg (October 2008)
"Defaming Milton Friedman: Naomi Klein's disastrous yet popular polemic against the great free market economist"
. ''Reason Magazine''. Washington, D.C.
A 2011 survey of economists commissioned by the EJW ranked Friedman as the second-most popular economist of the 20th century, following only
John Maynard Keynes John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes ( ; 5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946), was an English economist and philosopher whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. Originall ...
. Upon his death, ''
The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British newspaper published weekly in printed magazine format and daily on Electronic publishing, digital platforms. It publishes stories on topics that include economics, business, geopolitics, technology and culture. M ...
'' described him as "the most influential economist of the second half of the 20th century ... possibly of all of it".


Early life

Friedman was born in
Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...
, New York City, on July 31, 1912. His parents, Sára Ethel (née Landau) and Jenő Saul Friedman, were
Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
working-class immigrants from Beregszász in
Carpathian Ruthenia Transcarpathia (, ) is a historical region on the border between Central and Eastern Europe, mostly located in western Ukraine's Zakarpattia Oblast. From the Hungarian Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin, conquest of the Carpathian Basin ...
,
Kingdom of Hungary The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from 1000 to 1946 and was a key part of the Habsburg monarchy from 1526-1918. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the Coro ...
(now Berehove in Ukraine). They emigrated to America in their early teens. They both worked as dry goods merchants. Milton was the youngest of four children and only son. Shortly after his birth, the family relocated to
Rahway, New Jersey Rahway () is a city (New Jersey), city in southern Union County, New Jersey, Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. A bedroom community of New York City, it is centrally located in the Rahway River, Rahway Valley region, in the New ...
. Friedman's father died during Friedman's senior year of high school, leaving Friedman and two older sisters to care for their mother. In his early teens, Friedman was injured in a car accident, which scarred his upper lip. A talented student and an avid reader, Friedman graduated from Rahway High School in 1928, just before his 16th birthday. He was the first in his family to attend a university. Friedman was awarded a competitive scholarship to Rutgers University and graduated in 1932. Friedman initially intended to become an
actuary An actuary is a professional with advanced mathematical skills who deals with the measurement and management of risk and uncertainty. These risks can affect both sides of the balance sheet and require investment management, asset management, ...
or mathematician, however, the state of the economy, which was at this point in a depression, convinced him to become an economist. He was offered two scholarships to do graduate work, one in mathematics at Brown University and the other in economics at the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
. Friedman chose the latter, earning a Master of Arts degree in 1933. He was strongly influenced by Jacob Viner, Frank Knight, and Henry Simons. Friedman met his future wife, economist Rose Director, while at the University of Chicago. Friedman was also the student of Friedrich Hayek. During the 1933–1934 academic year, he had a fellowship at
Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
, where he studied statistics with statistician and economist
Harold Hotelling Harold Hotelling (; September 29, 1895 – December 26, 1973) was an American mathematical statistician and an influential economic theorist, known for Hotelling's law, Hotelling's lemma, and Hotelling's rule in economics, as well as Hotelling ...
. He was back in Chicago for the 1934–1935 academic year, working as a research assistant for Henry Schultz, who was then working on ''Theory and Measurement of Demand''. During the 1934–1935 academic year, Friedman formed what would later prove to be lifetime friendships with George Stigler and W. Allen Wallis, both of whom later taught with Friedman at the University of Chicago. Friedman was also influenced by two lifelong friends, Arthur Burns and Homer Johnson. They helped Friedman better understand the depth of economic thinking.


Public service

Friedman was unable to find academic employment, so in 1935 he followed his friend W. Allen Wallis to Washington, D.C., where
Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...
's
New Deal The New Deal was a series of wide-reaching economic, social, and political reforms enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1938, in response to the Great Depression in the United States, Great Depressi ...
was "a lifesaver" for many young economists. At this stage, Friedman said he and his wife "regarded the job-creation programs such as the WPA, CCC, and PWA appropriate responses to the critical situation", but not "the price- and wage-fixing measures of the National Recovery Administration and the Agricultural Adjustment Administration". Foreshadowing his later ideas, he believed
price controls Price controls are restrictions set in place and enforced by governments, on the prices that can be charged for goods and services in a market. The intent behind implementing such controls can stem from the desire to maintain affordability of go ...
interfered with an essential signaling mechanism to help resources be used where they were most valued. Indeed, Friedman later concluded that all government intervention associated with the New Deal was "the wrong cure for the wrong disease", arguing the Federal Reserve was to blame, and that they should have expanded the money supply in reaction to what he later described in ''A Monetary History of the United States'' as " The Great Contraction". Later, Friedman and his colleague Anna Schwartz wrote '' A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960'', which argued that the
Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...
was caused by a severe monetary contraction due to banking crises and poor policy on the part of the
Federal Reserve The Federal Reserve System (often shortened to the Federal Reserve, or simply the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a series of ...
. Robert J. Shiller describes the book as the "most influential account" of the Great Depression. During 1935, he began working for the National Resources Planning Board, which was then working on a large consumer budget survey. Ideas from this project later became a part of his ''Theory of the Consumption Function,'' a book which first described consumption smoothing and the permanent income hypothesis. Friedman began employment with the National Bureau of Economic Research during the autumn of 1937 to assist Simon Kuznets in his work on professional income. This work resulted in their jointly authored publication ''Incomes from Independent Professional Practice'', which introduced the concepts of permanent and transitory income, a major component of the permanent income hypothesis that Friedman worked out in greater detail in the 1950s. The book hypothesizes that professional licensing artificially restricts the supply of services and raises prices.''Incomes from Independent Professional Practice'', 1945, Milton Friedman, Simon Kuznets ''Incomes from Independent Professional Practice'' remained quite controversial within the economics community because of Friedman's hypothesis that
barriers to entry In theories of Competition (economics), competition in economics, a barrier to entry, or an economic barrier to entry, is a fixed cost that must be incurred by a new entrant, regardless of production or sales activities, into a Market (economics) ...
, which were exercised and enforced by the American Medical Association, led to higher than average wages for physicians, compared to other professional groups.
Barriers to entry In theories of Competition (economics), competition in economics, a barrier to entry, or an economic barrier to entry, is a fixed cost that must be incurred by a new entrant, regardless of production or sales activities, into a Market (economics) ...
are a fixed cost which must be incurred regardless of any outside factors such as work experience, or other factors of
human capital Human capital or human assets is a concept used by economists to designate personal attributes considered useful in the production process. It encompasses employee knowledge, skills, know-how, good health, and education. Human capital has a subs ...
. During 1940, Friedman was appointed as an assistant professor teaching economics at the
University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...
, but encountered
antisemitism Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...
in the Economics department and returned to government service. From 1941 to 1943 Friedman worked on wartime tax policy for the
federal government A federation (also called a federal state) is an entity characterized by a political union, union of partially federated state, self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a #Federal governments, federal government (federalism) ...
, as an advisor to senior officials of the
United States Department of the Treasury The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the Treasury, national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States. It is one of 15 current United States federal executive departments, U.S. government departments. ...
. As a Treasury spokesman during 1942, he advocated a Keynesian policy of taxation. He helped to invent the payroll
withholding tax Tax withholding, also known as tax retention, pay-as-you-earn tax or tax deduction at source, is income tax paid to the government by the payer of the income rather than by the recipient of the income. The tax is thus withheld or deducted from the ...
system, since the federal government needed money to fund the war. He later said, "I have no apologies for it, but I really wish we hadn't found it necessary and I wish there were some way of abolishing withholding now." In Milton and Rose Friedman's jointly written memoir, he wrote, "Rose has repeatedly chided me over the years about the role that I played in making possible the current overgrown government we both criticize so strongly."


Academic career


Early years

In 1940, Friedman accepted a position at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, but left because of differences with faculty regarding United States involvement in World War II. Friedman believed the United States should enter the war. In 1943, Friedman joined the Division of War Research at
Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
(headed by W. Allen Wallis and
Harold Hotelling Harold Hotelling (; September 29, 1895 – December 26, 1973) was an American mathematical statistician and an influential economic theorist, known for Hotelling's law, Hotelling's lemma, and Hotelling's rule in economics, as well as Hotelling ...
), where he spent the rest of
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
working as a mathematical statistician, focusing on problems of weapons design, military tactics, and metallurgical experiments. In 1945, Friedman submitted ''Incomes from Independent Professional Practice'' (co-authored with Kuznets and completed during 1940) to Columbia as his doctoral dissertation. The university awarded him a PhD in 1946. Friedman spent the 1945–1946 academic year teaching at the
University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...
(where his friend George Stigler was employed). On February 12, 1945, his only son, David D. Friedman, who would later follow in his father's footsteps as an economist, was born.


University of Chicago

In 1946, Friedman accepted an offer to teach economic theory at the University of Chicago (a position opened by the departure of his former professor Jacob Viner to
Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...
). Friedman would work for the University of Chicago for the next 30 years. There, he contributed to the establishment of an intellectual community that produced a number of Nobel Memorial Prize winners, known collectively as the
Chicago school of economics The Chicago school of economics is a Neoclassical economics, neoclassical Schools of economic thought, school of economic thought associated with the work of the faculty at the University of Chicago, some of whom have constructed and populari ...
. At the time,
Arthur F. Burns Arthur Frank Burns (April 27, 1904 – June 26, 1987) was an American economist and diplomat who served as the 10th chair of the Federal Reserve, chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1970 to 1978. He previously chaired the Council of Economic Ad ...
, who was then the head of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and later
chairman of the Federal Reserve The chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is the head of the Federal Reserve, and is the active executive officer of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The chairman presides at meetings of the Board. ...
, asked Friedman to rejoin the Bureau's staff. He accepted the invitation, and assumed responsibility for the Bureau's inquiry into the role of money in the business cycle. As a result, he initiated the "Workshop in Money and Banking" (the "Chicago Workshop"), which promoted a revival of monetary studies. During the latter half of the 1940s, Friedman began a collaboration with Anna Schwartz, an economic historian at the Bureau, that would ultimately result in the 1963 publication of a book co-authored by Friedman and Schwartz, ''A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960''. In 1951, Friedman was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal, which at the time was awarded every other year to the best economist under the age of 40, by the American Economic Association.


University of Cambridge

Friedman spent the 1954–1955 academic year as a Fulbright Visiting Fellow at
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Gonville and Caius College, commonly known as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348 by Edmund Gonville, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and ...
. At the time, the Cambridge economics faculty was divided into a Keynesian majority (including Joan Robinson and Richard Kahn) and an anti-Keynesian minority (headed by Dennis Robertson). Friedman speculated he was invited to the fellowship because his views were unacceptable to both of the Cambridge factions. Later his weekly columns for ''Newsweek'' magazine (1966–84) were well read and increasingly influential among political and business people, and helped earn the magazine a Gerald Loeb Special Award in 1968. From 1968 to 1978, he and
Paul Samuelson Paul Anthony Samuelson (May 15, 1915 – December 13, 2009) was an American economist who was the first American to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. When awarding the prize in 1970, the Swedish Royal Academies stated that he "h ...
participated in the Economics Cassette Series, a biweekly subscription series where the economist would discuss the days' issues for about a half-hour at a time.


''A Theory of the Consumption Function''

One of Milton Friedman's most popular works, ''A Theory of the Consumption Function'', challenged traditional Keynesian viewpoints about the household. This work was originally published in 1957 by
Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial ...
, and it reanalyzed the relationship displayed "between aggregate consumption or aggregate savings and aggregate income". Friedman's counterpart Keynes believed people would modify their household consumption expenditures to relate to their existing income levels. Friedman's research introduced the term "permanent income" to the world, which was the average of a household's expected income over several years, and he also developed the permanent income hypothesis. Friedman thought income consisted of several components, namely transitory and permanent. He established the formula y=y_p+y_t to calculate income, with ''p'' representing the permanent component, and ''t'' representing the transitory component. Milton Friedman's research changed how economists interpreted the consumption function, and his work pushed the idea that current income was not the only factor affecting people's adjustment household consumption expenditures. Instead, expected income levels also affected how households would change their consumption expenditures. Friedman's contributions strongly influenced research on consumer behavior, and he further defined how to predict consumption smoothing, which contradicts Keynes' marginal propensity to consume. Although this work presented many controversial points of view which differed from existing viewpoints established by Keynes, ''A Theory of the Consumption Function'' helped Friedman gain respect in the field of economics. His work on the permanent income hypothesis is among the many contributions which were listed as reasons for his Sveriges-Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences. His work was later expanded on by Christopher D. Carroll, especially in regards to the absence of liquidity constraints. The permanent income hypothesis faces some criticism, mainly from Keynesian economists. The primary criticism of the hypothesis is based on a lack of liquidity constraints.


''Capitalism and Freedom''

His book '' Capitalism and Freedom'', inspired by a series of lectures he gave at Wabash College, brought him national and international attention outside academia. It was published in 1962 by the
University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the university press of the University of Chicago, a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It pu ...
and consists of essays that used non-mathematical economic models to explore issues of public policy. It sold over 400,000 copies in the first eighteen years and more than half a million since 1962.1982 edition preface of ''Capitalism and freedom'', p. xi of the 2002 edition ''Capitalism and Freedom'' was translated into eighteen languages. Friedman talks about the need to move to a classically liberal society, that free markets would help nations and individuals in the long-run and fix the efficiency problems currently faced by the United States and other major countries of the 1950s and 1960s. He goes through the chapters specifying an issue in each respective chapter from the role of government and money supply to social welfare programs to a special chapter on occupational licensure. Friedman concludes ''Capitalism and Freedom'' with his "classical liberal" stance that government should stay out of matters that do not need it and should only involve itself when absolutely necessary for the survival of its people and the country. He recounts how the best of a country's abilities come from its free markets while its failures come from government intervention.


Post-retirement

In 1977, at the age of 65, Friedman retired from the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
after teaching there for 30 years. He and his wife moved to San Francisco, where he became a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. From 1977 on, he was affiliated with the Hoover Institution at
Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...
. During 1977, Friedman was approached by Bob Chitester and the Free to Choose Network. They asked him to create a television program presenting his economic and social philosophy. Friedman and his wife Rose worked on this project for the next three years, and during 1980, the ten-part series, titled '' Free to Choose'', was broadcast by the
Public Broadcasting Service The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia Arlington County, or simply Arlington, is a County (United States), county in the ...
(PBS). The companion book to the series (co-authored by Milton and his wife, Rose Friedman), also titled ''Free To Choose'', was the bestselling nonfiction book of 1980. Friedman served as an unofficial adviser to
Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party a ...
during his 1980 presidential campaign, and then served on the President's Economic Policy Advisory Board for the rest of the Reagan Administration. Ebenstein says Friedman was "the 'guru' of the Reagan administration". In 1988, he received the
National Medal of Science The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral science, behavior ...
and Reagan honored him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Friedman is known now as one of the most influential economists of the 20th century. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Friedman continued to write editorials and appear on television. He made several visits to Eastern Europe and to China, where he also advised governments. He was also for many years a Trustee of the Philadelphia Society.


Personal life

Friedman had two children,
David David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Dam ...
and Jan. He met his wife, Rose Friedman (née Director), at the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
in 1932, and wed six years later, in 1938. Friedman was noticeably shorter than some of his colleagues; he measured , and has been described as an "Elfin Libertarian" by Binyamin Appelbaum. Rose Friedman, when asked about Friedman's successes, said that "I have never had the desire to compete with Milton professionally (perhaps because I was smart enough to recognize I couldn't). On the other hand, he has always made me feel that his achievement is my achievement." During the 1960s, Friedman built (and subsequently maintained) a cottage in Fairlee, Vermont. Friedman also had an apartment in Russian Hill, San Francisco, where he lived from 1977 until his death.


Religious views

According to a 2007 article in '' Commentary'' magazine, his "parents were moderately observant Jews, but Friedman, after an intense burst of childhood piety, rejected religion altogether".Lanny Ebenstein (May 2007)
Milton Friedman
'' Commentary'', p. 286.
He described himself as an agnostic. Friedman wrote extensively of his life and experiences, especially in 1998 in his memoirs with his wife,
Rose A rose is either a woody perennial plant, perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred Rose species, species and Garden roses, tens of thousands of cultivar ...
, titled ''Two Lucky People''. In this book, Rose Friedman describes how she and Milton Friedman raised their two children, Janet and David, with a Christmas tree in the home. "Orthodox Jews of course, do not celebrate Christmas. However, just as, when I was a child, my mother had permitted me to have a Christmas tree one year when my friend had one, she not only tolerated our having a Christmas tree, she even strung popcorn to hang on it."


Death

Friedman died of heart failure at the age of 94 years in San Francisco on November 16, 2006. He was still a working economist performing original economic research; his last column was published in ''
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...
'' the day after his death. He was survived by his wife, Rose Friedman (who would die on August 18, 2009), and their two children, David D. Friedman, known for '' The Machinery of Freedom,'' as well as his unique anarcho-capitalism from a Chicago School perspective, and attorney and
bridge A bridge is a structure built to Span (engineering), span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, whi ...
player Jan Martel.


Scholarly contributions


Economics

Friedman was best known for reviving interest in the money supply as a determinant of the nominal value of output, that is, the quantity theory of money. Monetarism is the set of views associated with modern quantity theory. Its origins can be traced back to the 16th-century School of Salamanca or even further; however, Friedman's contribution is largely responsible for its modern popularization. He co-authored, with Anna Schwartz, '' A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960'' (1963), which was an examination of the role of the money supply and economic activity in the U.S. history. Friedman was the main proponent of the monetarist school of economics. He maintained that there is a close and stable association between inflation and the money supply, mainly that inflation could be avoided with proper regulation of the monetary base's growth rate. He famously used the analogy of " dropping money out of a helicopter", to avoid dealing with money injection mechanisms and other factors that would overcomplicate his models. Friedman's arguments were designed to counter the popular concept of cost-push inflation, that the increased general price level at the time was the result of increases in the price of oil, or increases in wages; as he wrote: Friedman rejected the use of
fiscal policy In economics and political science, fiscal policy is the use of government revenue collection ( taxes or tax cuts) and expenditure to influence a country's economy. The use of government revenue expenditures to influence macroeconomic variab ...
as a tool of
demand In economics, demand is the quantity of a goods, good that consumers are willing and able to purchase at various prices during a given time. In economics "demand" for a commodity is not the same thing as "desire" for it. It refers to both the desi ...
management; he also held the belief that the government's role in the guidance of the economy should be restricted severely. Friedman wrote extensively on the
Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...
, and he termed the 1929–1933 period the Great Contraction. He argued that the Depression had been caused by an ordinary financial shock and the duration and seriousness of which were greatly increased by the subsequent contraction of the money supply caused by the misguided policies of the directors of the Federal Reserve. This theory was put forth in '' A Monetary History of the United States'', and the chapter on the Great Depression was then published as a stand-alone book entitled ''The Great Contraction, 1929–1933''. Both books are still in print from the
Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial ...
, and some editions include as an appendix a speech at a
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
event honoring Friedman in which
Ben Bernanke Ben Shalom Bernanke ( ; born December 13, 1953) is an American economist who served as the 14th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2014. After leaving the Federal Reserve, he was appointed a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Insti ...
made this statement:
Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression, you're right. We did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again.FRB Speech
FederalReserve.gov: Remarks by Governor Ben S. Bernanke, At the Conference to Honor Milton Friedman, University of Chicago, Nov. 8, 2002
/ref>
Friedman also argued for the removal of government intervention in currency markets, thereby spawning an enormous literature on the subject, as well as promoting the practice of freely floating exchange rates. His close friend George Stigler explained, "As is customary in science, he did not win a full victory, in part because research was directed along different lines by the theory of rational expectations, a newer approach developed by Robert Lucas, also at the University of Chicago." The relationship between Friedman and Lucas, or new classical macroeconomics as a whole, was highly complex. The Friedmanian Phillips curve was an interesting starting point for Lucas, but he soon realized that the solution provided by Friedman was not quite satisfactory. Lucas elaborated a new approach in which rational expectations were presumed instead of the Friedmanian adaptive expectations. Due to this reformulation, the story in which the theory of the new classical Phillips curve was embedded radically changed. This modification, however, had a significant effect on Friedman's own approach, so, as a result, the theory of the Friedmanian Phillips curve also changed. Moreover, new classical adherent Neil Wallace, who was a graduate student at the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
between 1960 and 1963, regarded Friedman's theoretical courses as a mess, highlighting the strained relationship between monetarism and new classical schools. Friedman was also known for his work on the consumption function, the permanent income hypothesis (1957), which Friedman himself referred to as his best scientific work. This work contended that utility-maximizing consumers would spend a proportional amount of what they perceived to be their permanent income. Permanent Income refers to such factors like
human capital Human capital or human assets is a concept used by economists to designate personal attributes considered useful in the production process. It encompasses employee knowledge, skills, know-how, good health, and education. Human capital has a subs ...
. Windfall gains would mostly be saved because of the law of diminishing marginal utility. Friedman's essay " The Methodology of Positive Economics" (1953) provided the
epistemological Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called "the theory of knowledge", it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowled ...
pattern for his own subsequent research and to a degree that of the Chicago School. There he argued that economics as ''science'' should be free of value judgments for it to be objective. Moreover, a useful economic theory should be judged not by its descriptive realism but by its simplicity and fruitfulness as an engine of prediction. That is, students should measure the accuracy of its predictions, rather than the 'soundness of its assumptions'. His argument was part of an ongoing debate among such statisticians as
Jerzy Neyman Jerzy Spława-Neyman (April 16, 1894 – August 5, 1981; ) was a Polish mathematician and statistician who first introduced the modern concept of a confidence interval into statistical hypothesis testing and, with Egon Pearson, revised Ronald Fis ...
, Leonard Savage, and
Ronald Fisher Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher (17 February 1890 – 29 July 1962) was a British polymath who was active as a mathematician, statistician, biologist, geneticist, and academic. For his work in statistics, he has been described as "a genius who a ...
. While being an advocate of the free market, Friedman believed that the government had two crucial roles. In an interview with Phil Donahue, Friedman argued that "the two basic functions of a government are to protect the nation against foreign enemy, and to protect citizens against its fellows". He also admitted that although privatization of national defense could reduce the overall cost, he has not yet thought of a way to make this privatization possible.


Rejection and subsequent evolution of the Phillips curve

Other important contributions include his critique of the Phillips curve and the concept of the natural rate of unemployment (1968). This critique associated his name, together with that of Edmund Phelps, with the insight that a government that brings about greater inflation cannot permanently reduce unemployment by doing so. Unemployment may be temporarily lower, if the inflation is a surprise, but in the long run unemployment will be determined by the frictions and imperfections of the labor market. If the conditions are not met and inflation is expected, the "long run" effects will replace the "short term" effects. Through his critique, the Philips curve evolved from a strict model emphasizing the connection between inflation and unemployment as being absolute, to a model which emphasized short term unemployment reductions and long term employment stagnations.Chang, Roberto (1997) "Is Low Unemployment Inflationary?" ''Economic Review,'' Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. pp. 4–13. Friedman's revised and updated Phillips Curve also changed as a result of Robert Lucas's idea of Rational expectations, replacing the adaptive expectations Friedman used.


Statistics

One of his most famous contributions to statistics is sequential sampling. Friedman did statistical work at the Division of War Research at Columbia, where he and his colleagues came up with the technique. It became, in the words of '' The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics'', "the standard analysis of quality control inspection". The dictionary adds, "Like many of Friedman's contributions, in retrospect it seems remarkably simple and obvious to apply basic economic ideas to quality control; that, however, is a measure of his genius."Doherty, Brian
The Life and Times of Milton Friedman – Remembering the 20th century's most influential libertarian
. Reason.com. Retrieved on September 6, 2017.


Corporate social responsibility

Friedman criticised
corporate social responsibility Corporate social responsibility (CSR) or corporate social impact is a form of international private business industry self-regulation, self-regulation which aims to contribute to societal goals of a philanthropy, philanthropic, activist, or chari ...
, most famously in an op-ed in the New York Times Magazine in 1970. Friedman argued that businesses often used claims about social responsibility to increase returns and described them as "hypocritical window dressing". Managers were also poorly prepared to make decisions about social causes and these outlays diverted funds that belonged instead to shareholders. Friedman believed that only monopolistic corporations could routinely make altruistic expenditures on social responsibility, because in a competitive market such costs would undermine the business.


Public policy positions


Federal Reserve and monetary policy

Although Friedman concluded the government does have a role in the monetary system he was critical of the Federal Reserve due to its poor performance and felt it should be abolished. He was opposed to Federal Reserve policies, even during the so-called " Volcker shock" that was labeled " monetarist". Friedman believed the Federal Reserve System should ultimately be replaced with a computer program. He favored a system that would automatically buy and sell
securities A security is a tradable financial asset. The term commonly refers to any form of financial instrument, but its legal definition varies by jurisdiction. In some countries and languages people commonly use the term "security" to refer to any for ...
in response to changes in the money supply. The proposal to constantly grow the money supply at a certain predetermined amount every year has become known as Friedman's k-percent rule.Salter, Alexander, William. (2014). An Introduction to Monetary Policy Rules. ''Mercatus Workıng Paper. George Mason University''. There is debate about the effectiveness of a theoretical money supply targeting regime. The Fed's inability to meet its money supply targets from 1978 to 1982 led some to conclude it is not a feasible alternative to more conventional inflation and interest rate targeting. Towards the end of his life, Friedman expressed doubt about the validity of targeting the quantity of money. To date, most countries have adopted inflation targeting instead of the k-percent rule. Idealistically, Friedman actually favored the principles of the 1930s
Chicago plan The Chicago Plan was introduced by University of Chicago economists in 1933 as a comprehensive plan to reform the monetary and banking system of the United States. The Great Depression had been caused in part by excessive private bank lending ...
, which would have ended fractional reserve banking and, thus, private money creation. It would force banks to have 100% reserves backing deposits, and instead place money creation powers solely in the hands of the US Government. This would make targeting money growth more possible, as endogenous money created by fractional reserve lending would no longer be a major issue. Friedman was a strong advocate for floating exchange rates throughout the entire Bretton-Woods period (1944–1971). He argued that a flexible exchange rate would make external adjustment possible and allow countries to avoid balance of payments crises. He saw fixed exchange rates as an undesirable form of government intervention. The case was articulated in an influential 1953 paper, "The Case for Flexible Exchange Rates", at a time when most commentators regarded the possibility of floating exchange rates as an unrealistic policy proposal.


Foreign policy

While Walter Oi is credited with establishing the economic basis for a volunteer military, Friedman was a proponent, and was credited with ending the draft, stating that the
draft Draft, the draft, or draught may refer to: Watercraft dimensions * Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel * Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail * Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a v ...
was "inconsistent with a free society". In '' Capitalism and Freedom'', he argued conscription is inequitable and arbitrary, preventing young men from shaping their lives as they see fit. During the Nixon administration he headed the committee to research a conversion to paid/volunteer armed force. Friedman did, however, believe the introduction of a system of universal military training as a reserve in cases of war-time could be justified. He still opposed its implementation in the United States, describing it as a "monstrosity". Biographer Lanny Ebenstein noted a drift over time in Friedman's views from an interventionist to a more cautious foreign policy. He supported US involvement in the Second World War and initially supported a hard-line against Communism, but moderated over time. However, Friedman did state in a 1995 interview that he was an anti-interventionist. He opposed the
Gulf War , combatant2 = , commander1 = , commander2 = , strength1 = Over 950,000 soldiers3,113 tanks1,800 aircraft2,200 artillery systems , page = https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-PEMD-96- ...
and the
Iraq War The Iraq War (), also referred to as the Second Gulf War, was a prolonged conflict in Iraq lasting from 2003 to 2011. It began with 2003 invasion of Iraq, the invasion by a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition, which ...
. In a spring 2006 interview, Friedman said the US's stature in the world had been eroded by the Iraq War, but that it might be improved if
Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...
were to become a peaceful and independent country.


Libertarianism and the Republican Party

Friedman was an economic advisor and speech writer in
Barry Goldwater Barry Morris Goldwater (January 2, 1909 – May 29, 1998) was an American politician and major general in the United States Air Force, Air Force Reserve who served as a United States senator from 1953 to 1965 and 1969 to 1987, and was the Re ...
's failed presidential campaign in 1964. He was an advisor to California governor Ronald Reagan and was active in Reagan's presidential campaigns. He served as a member of President Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board starting in 1981. In 1988, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the
National Medal of Science The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral science, behavior ...
. In a 1995 interview with ''Reason'' magazine, Friedman criticized Murray Rothbard and Ayn Rand as "cult builders" and "dogmatists", citing this as justification for not joining the U.S. Libertarian Party. Friedman stated that he was a member of the Republican Party, "not because they have any principles, but because that's the way I am the most useful and have most influence." He described his philosophy as "clearly libertarian", though distanced himself from "zero-government" libertarianism, which he called "infeasible", citing the lack of historical examples of that philosophy succeeding. Friedman attended The Future of Freedom Conference, which was a meeting for libertarians, in 1990. His citation for the Presidential Medal of Freedom reads: "He has used a brilliant mind to advance a moral vision: the vision of a society where men and women are free, free to choose, but where government is not as free to override their decisions. That vision has changed America, and it is changing the world. All of us owe a tremendous debt to this man's towering intellect and his devotion to liberty."


Governmental involvement in the economy

In a 1962 essay that builds on arguments made by A. V. Dicey, Friedman argued that a "free society" would constitute a desirable but unstable equilibrium, due to an asymmetry between the visible benefits and the hidden harms of government intervention; he uses
tariff A tariff or import tax is a duty (tax), duty imposed by a national Government, government, customs territory, or supranational union on imports of goods and is paid by the importer. Exceptionally, an export tax may be levied on exports of goods ...
s as an example of a policy that brings noticeable financial benefits to a visible group, but causes worse harms to a diffuse group of workers and consumers. Friedman was supportive of the state provision of some public goods that private businesses are not considered as being able to provide. However, he argued that many of the services performed by government could be performed better by the private sector. Above all, if some public goods are provided by the state, he believed that they should not be a legal monopoly where private competition is prohibited; for example, he wrote: In 1962, Friedman criticized
Social Security Welfare spending is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifically to social insurance ...
in his book '' Capitalism and Freedom'', arguing that it had created welfare dependency. However, in the penultimate chapter of the same book, Friedman argued that while capitalism had greatly reduced the extent of poverty in absolute terms, "poverty is in part a relative matter, ndeven in ealthy Westerncountries, there are clearly many people living under conditions that the rest of us label as poverty." Friedman also noted that while private charity could be one recourse for alleviating poverty and cited late 19th century Britain and the United States as exemplary periods of extensive private charity and eleemosynary activity, he made the following point: Friedman argued further that other advantages of the negative income tax were that it could fit directly into the tax system, would be less costly, and would reduce the administrative burden of implementing a
social safety net A social safety net (SSN) consists of non-contributory assistance existing to improve lives of vulnerable families and individuals experiencing poverty and destitution. Examples of SSNs are previously-contributory social pensions, in-kind and foo ...
. Friedman reiterated these arguments 18 years later in '' Free to Choose'', with the additional proviso that such a reform would only be satisfactory if it replaced the current system of welfare programs rather than augment it. According to economist Robert H. Frank, writing in ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', Friedman's views in this regard were grounded in a belief that while "market forces ... accomplish wonderful things", they "cannot ensure a distribution of income that enables all citizens to meet basic economic needs". Friedman also criticized urban renewal programs in the United States due to their racially discriminatory and economically regressive effects. In 1979, Friedman expressed support for environmental taxes in general in an interview on '' The Phil Donahue Show'', saying "the best way to eal with pollutionis to impose a tax on the cost of the pollutants emitted by a car and make an incentive for car manufacturers and for consumers to keep down the amount of pollution." In ''Free to Choose'', Friedman reiterated his support for environmental taxes as compared with increased environmental regulation, stating "The preservation of the environment and the avoidance of undue pollution are real problems and they are problems concerning which the government has an important role to play. ... Most economists agree that a far better way to control pollution than the present method of specific regulation and supervision is to introduce market discipline by imposing effluent charges." In his 1955 article "The Role of Government in Education", Friedman proposed supplementing publicly operated schools with privately run but publicly funded schools through a system of school vouchers. Reforms similar to those proposed in the article were implemented in, for example, Chile in 1981 and Sweden in 1992. In 1996, Friedman, together with his wife, founded the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice to advocate school choice and vouchers. In 2016, the Friedman Foundation changed its name to EdChoice to honor the Friedmans' desire to have the educational choice movement live on without their names attached to it after their deaths. Michael Walker of the
Fraser Institute The Fraser Institute is a Canadian Conservatism in Canada, conservative public policy think tank registered as a Charitable organization, charity. It is headquartered in Vancouver, with additional offices in Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal. It has ...
and Friedman hosted a series of conferences from 1986 to 1994. The goal was to create a clear definition of economic freedom and a method for measuring it. Eventually this resulted in the first report on worldwide economic freedom, ''Economic Freedom in the World''. This annual report has since provided data for numerous peer-reviewed studies and has influenced policy in several nations. With sixteen other distinguished economists he opposed the Copyright Term Extension Act, and signed on to an amicus brief filed in '' Eldred v. Ashcroft''. Friedman jokingly described it as a " no-brainer". Friedman argued for stronger basic legal (constitutional) protection of economic rights and freedoms to further promote industrial-commercial growth and prosperity and buttress democracy and freedom and the rule of law generally in society. Friedman suggested medical savings accounts, repealing tax exemptions of employer-provided medical care and income-based deductibles as ways to lower health care costs in America. Friedman also argued that federal involvement in health care should be restricted, with state and local governments financing health care for the poor. Friedman believed the government should not operate
national parks A national park is a nature park designated for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes because of unparalleled national natural, historic, or cultural significance. It is an area of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that is protecte ...
. He argued that Yellowstone National Park should be sold for private development.


Social issues

Friedman also supported libertarian policies such as legalization of drugs and
prostitution Prostitution is a type of sex work that involves engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, no ...
. During 2005, Friedman and more than 500 other economists advocated discussions regarding the economic benefits of the legalization of marijuana. Friedman was also a supporter of gay rights. He never specifically supported
same-sex marriage Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same legal Legal sex and gender, sex. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 38 countries, with a total population of 1.5 ...
, instead saying "I do not believe there should be any discrimination against gays." Friedman favored immigration, saying "legal and illegal immigration has a very positive impact on the U.S. economy". However, he suggested that immigrants ought not to have access to the welfare system. Friedman stated that immigration from Mexico had been a "good thing", in particular illegal immigration. Friedman argued that illegal immigration was a boon because they "take jobs that most residents of this country are unwilling to take, they provide employers with workers of a kind they cannot get" and they do not use welfare. In '' Free to Choose'', Friedman wrote:
No arbitrary obstacles should prevent people from achieving those positions for which their talents fit them and which their values lead them to seek. Not birth, nationality, color, religion, sex, nor any other irrelevant characteristic should determine the opportunities that are open to a person – only his abilities.
Friedman also famously argued that the welfare state must end before immigration, or more specifically, before open borders, because immigrants might have an incentive to come directly because of welfare payments. Economist Bryan Caplan has disputed this assertion, arguing that welfare is generally distributed not among immigrants, but instead retirees, through
Social Security Welfare spending is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifically to social insurance ...
. Friedman was against public housing as he believed it was also a form of welfare. He believed that one of the main arguments politicians have for public housing is that regular low-income housing was too expensive due to the imposed higher cost of a fire and police department. He believed that it would only increase taxes and not benefit low-income people in the long run. Friedman was an advocate for direct cash instead of public housing believing that the people would be better off that way. He argued that liberals would never agree with this idea due to them not trusting their own citizens. He also stated that regression has already happened with more land being left vacant due to slow construction. Friedman argued that public housing instead encourages juvenile delinquency. Friedman was also against minimum wage laws; he saw them as a clear case as one can find that the precise opposite is happening when this was attempted. Minimum wage laws would increase unemployment in his eyes and that employers would not hire back workers that were already there for less pay. In his view, this would leave low-income people worse off because the voters for minimum wage laws would then become the victims of unemployment. He believed that these ideas of new minimum wage laws came from Northern factories and Unions, in an attempt to reduce competition from the South.


Honors, recognition and legacy

George H. Nash, a leading historian of American conservatism, says that by "the end of the 1960s he was probably the most highly regarded and influential conservative scholar in the country, and one of the few with an international reputation". In 1971, Friedman received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. Friedman allowed the libertarian
Cato Institute The Cato Institute is an American libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Ed Crane, Murray Rothbard, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Koch Industries.Koch ...
to use his name for its biennial Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty beginning in 2001. A Friedman Prize was given to the late British economist Peter Bauer in 2002, Peruvian economist
Hernando de Soto Hernando de Soto (; ; 1497 – 21 May 1542) was a Spanish explorer and conquistador who was involved in expeditions in Nicaragua and the Yucatan Peninsula. He played an important role in Francisco Pizarro's conquest of the Inca Empire in Peru, ...
in 2004, Mart Laar, former Estonian Prime Minister in 2006 and a young Venezuelan student Yon Goicoechea in 2008. His wife Rose, sister of Aaron Director, with whom he initiated the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, served on the international selection committee. Upon Friedman's death, Harvard President Lawrence Summers called him "The Great Liberator", saying "any honest Democrat will admit that we are now all Friedmanites." He said Friedman's great popular contribution was "in convincing people of the importance of allowing free markets to operate". Stephen Moore, a member of the editorial board of ''
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...
'', said in 2013: "Quoting the most-revered champion of free-market economics since
Adam Smith Adam Smith (baptised 1723 – 17 July 1790) was a Scottish economist and philosopher who was a pioneer in the field of political economy and key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment. Seen by some as the "father of economics"——— or ...
has become a little like quoting the Bible." He adds, "There are sometimes multiple and conflicting interpretations." Although post-Keynesian economist J. K. Galbraith was a prominent critic of Friedman and his ideology, he observed that "The age of
John Maynard Keynes John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes ( ; 5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946), was an English economist and philosopher whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. Originall ...
gave way to the age of Milton Friedman."


1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences

Friedman was awarded the
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (), commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics(), is an award in the field of economic sciences adminis ...
, the sole recipient for 1976, "for his achievements in the fields of consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and for his demonstration of the complexity of stabilization policy". His appointment was controversial, mainly for his association with military dictator
Augusto Pinochet Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean military officer and politician who was the dictator of Military dictatorship of Chile, Chile from 1973 to 1990. From 1973 to 1981, he was the leader ...
. Some economists, such as Institutional economist and 1974 Nobel Prize winner Gunnar Myrdal, criticized Friedman, and Myrdal's own 1974
Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...
partner Friedrich Hayek, for being reactionaries. Myrdal's criticism caused some economists to oppose the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economics Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel itself.


Hong Kong

Friedman said, "If you want to see
capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...
in action, go to Hong Kong." He wrote in 1990 that the Hong Kong economy was perhaps the best example of a free market economy. One month before his death, he wrote "Hong Kong Wrong – What would Cowperthwaite say?" in ''The Wall Street Journal'', criticizing Donald Tsang, Chief Executive of Hong Kong, for abandoning "positive non interventionism". Tsang later said he was merely changing the slogan to "big market, small government", where small government is defined as less than 20% of GDP. In a debate between Tsang and his rival Alan Leong before the 2007 Hong Kong Chief Executive election, Leong introduced the topic and jokingly accused Tsang of angering Friedman to death (Friedman had died only a year prior).


Chile

During 1975, two years after the military coup that brought military dictator
Augusto Pinochet Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean military officer and politician who was the dictator of Military dictatorship of Chile, Chile from 1973 to 1990. From 1973 to 1981, he was the leader ...
to power and ended the government of Salvador Allende, the economy of Chile experienced a severe crisis. Friedman and Arnold Harberger accepted an invitation of a private Chilean foundation to visit Chile and speak on principles of economic freedom. He spent seven days in Chile giving a series of lectures at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and the University of Chile. One of the lectures was entitled "The Fragility of Freedom" and according to Friedman, "dealt with precisely the threat to freedom from a centralized military government." In a letter to Pinochet of April 21, 1975, Friedman considered the "key economic problems of Chile are clearly ... inflation and the promotion of a healthy social market economy". wo Lucky People: Memoirs By Milton Friedman, Rose D. Friedman. Appendix A, pp. 591–593. Letter from Friedman to Pinochet, April 21, 1975./ref> He stated that "There is only one way to end inflation: by drastically reducing the rate of increase of the quantity of money" and that "cutting government spending is by far and away the most desirable way to reduce the fiscal deficit, because it ... strengthens the private sector thereby laying the foundations for ''healthy'' economic growth". As to how rapidly inflation should be ended, Friedman felt that "for Chile where inflation is raging at 10–20% a month ... gradualism is not feasible. It would involve so painful an operation over so long a period that the ''patient'' would not survive." Choosing "a brief period of higher unemployment" was the lesser evil.. and that "the experience of Germany, ... of Brazil ..., of the post-war adjustment in the U.S. ... all argue for shock treatment". In the letter Friedman recommended to deliver the shock approach with "a package to eliminate the surprise and to relieve acute distress" and "for definiteness let me sketch the contents of a package proposal ... to be taken as illustrative" although his knowledge of Chile was "too limited to enable imto be precise or comprehensive". He listed a "sample proposal" of 8 monetary and fiscal measures including "the removal of as many as obstacles as possible that now hinder the private market. For example, suspend ... the present law against discharging employees". He closed, stating "Such a shock program could end inflation in months". His letter suggested that cutting spending to reduce the fiscal deficit would result in less transitional unemployment than raising taxes. Sergio de Castro, a Chilean Chicago School graduate, became the nation's Minister of Finance in 1975. During his six-year tenure, foreign investment increased, restrictions were placed on striking and labor unions, and GDP rose yearly. A foreign exchange program was created between the Catholic University of Chile and the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
. Many other Chicago School alumni were appointed government posts during and after Pinochet's dictatorship; others taught its economic doctrine at Chilean universities. They became known as the Chicago Boys. Friedman defended his activity in Chile on the grounds that, in his opinion, the adoption of free market policies not only improved the economic situation of Chile but also contributed to the amelioration of Pinochet's rule and to the eventual transition to a democratic government during 1990. That idea is included in '' Capitalism and Freedom'', in which he declared that economic freedom is not only desirable in itself but is also a necessary condition for political freedom. In his 1980 documentary '' Free to Choose'', he said the following: "Chile is not a politically free system, and I do not condone the system. But the people there are freer than the people in Communist societies because government plays a smaller role. ... The conditions of the people in the past few years has been getting better and not worse. They would be still better to get rid of the junta and to be able to have a free democratic system." In 1984, Friedman stated that he has "never refrained from criticizing the political system in Chile". In 1991, he said: "I have nothing good to say about the political regime that Pinochet imposed. It was a terrible political regime. The real miracle of Chile is not how well it has done economically; the real miracle of Chile is that a military junta was willing to go against its principles and support a free market regime designed by principled believers in a free market. ... In Chile, the drive for political freedom, that was generated by economic freedom and the resulting economic success, ultimately resulted in a referendum that introduced political democracy. Now, at long last, Chile has all three things: political freedom, human freedom and economic freedom. Chile will continue to be an interesting experiment to watch to see whether it can keep all three or whether, now that it has political freedom, that political freedom will tend to be used to destroy or reduce economic freedom." He stressed that the lectures he gave in Chile were the same lectures he later gave in China and other socialist states. He further stated "I do not consider it as evil for an economist to render technical economic advice to the Chilean Government, any more than I would regard it as evil for a physician to give technical medical advice to the Chilean Government to help end a medical plague." During the 2000 PBS documentary ''The Commanding Heights'' (based on the book), Friedman continued to argue that "free markets would undermine inochet'spolitical centralization and political control", and that criticism over his role in Chile missed his main contention that freer markets resulted in freer people, and that Chile's unfree economy had caused Pinochet's rise. Friedman advocated for free markets which undermined "political centralization and political control". Because of his involvement with the government of Chile, which was a dictatorship at the time of his visit, there were international protests, spanning from Sweden to America when Friedman was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in 1976. Friedman was accused of supporting the military dictatorship in Chile because of the relation of economists of the University of Chicago to Pinochet, and a seven-day trip he took to Chile during March 1975 (less than two years after the coup that ended with the death of President Salvador Allende). Friedman answered that he was never an advisor to the dictatorship, but only gave some lectures and seminars on inflation, and met with officials, including Augusto Pinochet the head of the military dictatorship, while in Chile. After a 1991 speech on drug legalization, Friedman answered a question on his involvement with the Pinochet regime. Friedman said that he was never an advisor to Pinochet (also mentioned in his 1984 Iceland interview), but that a group University of Chicago students were involved in Chile's economic reforms. Friedman credited these reforms with high levels of economic growth and with the establishment of democracy that has subsequently occurred in Chile. In October 1988, after returning from a lecture tour of China during which he had met with Zhao Ziyang,
General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party The general secretary of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party ( zh, s=中国共产党中央委员会总书记, p=Zhōngguó Gòngchǎndǎng Zhōngyāng Wěiyuánhuì Zǒngshūjì) is the leader of the Chinese Communist Part ...
, Friedman wrote to The Stanford Daily asking if he should anticipate a similar "avalanche of protests for having been willing to give advice to so evil a government? And if not, why not?"


Iceland

Friedman visited
Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...
during the autumn of 1984, met with important Icelanders and gave a lecture at the University of Iceland on the "tyranny of the ''status quo''". He participated in a lively television debate on August 31, 1984, with socialist intellectuals, including Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, who later became
President of Iceland The president of Iceland () is the head of state of Iceland. The incumbent is Halla Tómasdóttir, who won the 2024 Icelandic presidential election, 2024 presidential election. The president is not involved in the running of the country, bu ...
. When they complained that a fee was charged for attending his lecture at the university and that, hitherto, lectures by visiting scholars had been free-of-charge, Friedman replied that previous lectures had not been free-of-charge in a meaningful sense: lectures always have related costs. What mattered was whether attendees or non-attendees covered those costs. Friedman thought that it was fairer that only those who attended paid. In this discussion Friedman also stated that he did not receive any money for delivering that lecture.


Estonia

Although Friedman never visited
Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...
, his book '' Free to Choose'' influenced Estonia's then 32-year-old prime minister, Mart Laar, who has claimed that it was the only book on economics he had read before taking office. Laar's reforms are often credited with responsibility for transforming Estonia from an impoverished Soviet republic to the " Baltic Tiger". A prime element of Laar's program was introduction of the
flat tax A flat tax (short for flat-rate tax) is a tax with a single rate on the taxable amount, after accounting for any deductions or exemptions from the tax base. It is not necessarily a fully proportional tax. Implementations are often progressi ...
. Laar won the 2006 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty, awarded by the
Cato Institute The Cato Institute is an American libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Ed Crane, Murray Rothbard, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Koch Industries.Koch ...
.


United Kingdom

After 1950, Friedman was frequently invited to lecture in Britain; by the 1970s, his ideas had gained widespread attention in conservative circles. For example, he was a regular speaker at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a libertarian think tank.
Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...
politician
Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013), was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of th ...
closely followed IEA programs and ideas and met Friedman there in 1978. He also strongly influenced Keith Joseph, who became Thatcher's senior advisor on economic affairs, as well as Alan Walters and Patrick Minford, two other key advisers. Major newspapers, including the ''Daily Telegraph,'' ''The Times,'' and ''The Financial Times'' all promulgated Friedman's monetarist ideas to British decision-makers. Friedman's ideas strongly influenced Thatcher and her allies when she became Prime Minister in 1979. Galbraith strongly criticised the "workability of the Friedmanite formula" for which, he said, "Britain has volunteered to be the guinea pig".


United States

After his death a number of obituaries and articles were written in Friedman's honor, citing him as one of the most important and influential economists of the
post-war A post-war or postwar period is the interval immediately following the end of a war. The term usually refers to a varying period of time after World War II, which ended in 1945. A post-war period can become an interwar period or interbellum, ...
era. Milton Friedman's somewhat controversial legacy in America remains strong within the
conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...
movement. However, some journalists and economists like Noah Smith and Scott Sumner have argued Friedman's academic legacy has been buried under his political philosophy and misinterpreted by modern conservatives.


Criticism of published works

Friedman's exogenous money supply theory has been deeply criticized by British Post-Keynesian economist
Nicholas Kaldor Nicholas Kaldor, Baron Kaldor (12 May 1908 – 30 September 1986), born Káldor Miklós, was a Hungarian-born British economist. He developed the "compensation" criteria called Kaldor–Hicks efficiency for welfare spending, welfare comparisons ...
in the 1970s. While Friedman and monetarist economists claimed that the money supply was exogenously created by a powerful central bank, Kaldor claimed that the money was created by second-tier banks through the distribution of credits to
household A household consists of one or more persons who live in the same dwelling. It may be of a single family or another type of person group. The household is the basic unit of analysis in many social, microeconomic and government models, and is im ...
s and
companies A company, abbreviated as co., is a legal entity representing an association of legal people, whether natural, juridical or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common purpose and unite to achieve specifi ...
. In the Post-Keynesian framework, central banks simply refinance second-tier banks on demand but are not in the core of monetary creation. Milton Friedman and Nicholas Kaldor were involved in a fierce debate in 1969–70, in which the monetarist economist had the upper hand. In 1982, Kaldor published a book entitled ''The Scourge of Monetarism'', deeply criticizing monetarist-inspired policies. Econometrician David Hendry criticized part of Friedman's and Anna Schwartz's 1982 ''Monetary Trends''. When asked about it during an interview with Icelandic TV in 1984, Friedman said that the criticism referred to a different problem from that which he and Schwartz had tackled, and hence was irrelevant, and pointed out the lack of consequential peer review amongst econometricians on Hendry's work. In 2006, Hendry said that Friedman was guilty of "serious errors" of misunderstanding that meant "the t-ratios he reported for UK money demand were overstated by nearly 100 per cent", and said that, in a paper published in 1991 with Neil Ericsson, he had refuted "almost every empirical claim ... made about UK money demand" by Friedman and Schwartz. A 2004 paper updated and confirmed the validity of the Hendry–Ericsson findings through 2000. Some commentators believe that Friedman was not open enough, in their view, to the possibility of market inefficiencies. Economist Noah Smith argues that while Friedman made many important contributions to economic theory not all of his ideas relating to macroeconomics have entirely held up over the years and that too few people are willing to challenge them. Political scientist C. B. Macpherson disagreed with Friedman's historical assessment of economic freedom leading to political freedom, suggesting that political freedom actually gave way to economic freedom for property-owning elites. He also challenged the notion that markets efficiently allocated resources and rejected Friedman's definition of liberty. Friedman's positivist methodological approach to economics has also been critiqued and debated. Finnish economist Uskali Mäki argued some of his assumptions were unrealistic and vague. Friedman has been criticized by some prominent
Austrian economists The Austrian school is a Heterodox economics, heterodox Schools of economic thought, school of economic thought that advocates strict adherence to methodological individualism, the concept that social phenomena result primarily from the motivat ...
, including Murray Rothbard and Walter Block. Block called Friedman a "socialist" and was critical of his support for a central banking system, saying "First and foremost, this economist supported the Federal Reserve System all throughout his professional life. That organization of course does not own the money stock, but controls it. Friedman was an inveterate hater of the
gold standard A gold standard is a backed currency, monetary system in which the standard economics, economic unit of account is based on a fixed quantity of gold. The gold standard was the basis for the international monetary system from the 1870s to the ...
, denigrating its advocates as 'gold bugs'." Rothbard criticized Friedman's conclusion that the
Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...
happened as a result of a
deflation In economics, deflation is a decrease in the general price level of goods and services. Deflation occurs when the inflation rate falls below 0% and becomes negative. While inflation reduces the value of currency over time, deflation increases i ...
ary spiral, arguing that this is inconsistent with the data, even though during the period described by Friedman as "The Great Contraction", the money supply did in fact decrease year-over-year by over 10 percentage points. Although the book was described by the
Cato Institute The Cato Institute is an American libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Ed Crane, Murray Rothbard, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Koch Industries.Koch ...
as among the greatest economics books in the 20th century, and ''A Monetary History of the United States'' is widely considered to be among the most influential economics books ever made, it has endured criticisms for its conclusion that the
Federal Reserve The Federal Reserve System (often shortened to the Federal Reserve, or simply the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a series of ...
was to blame for the
Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...
. Some economists, including noted Friedman critic Peter Temin, have raised questions about the legitimacy of Friedman's claims about whether or not monetary quantity levels were endogenous rather than exogenously determined, as ''A Monetary History of the United States'' posits. Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Krugman argued that the 2008 recession proved that, during a recession, a
central bank A central bank, reserve bank, national bank, or monetary authority is an institution that manages the monetary policy of a country or monetary union. In contrast to a commercial bank, a central bank possesses a monopoly on increasing the mo ...
cannot control broad money ( M3 money, as defined by the
OECD The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; , OCDE) is an international organization, intergovernmental organization with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and international trade, wor ...
), and even if it can, the money supply does not bear a direct or proven relationship with GDP. According to Krugman, this was true in the 1930s, and the claim that the Federal Reserve could have avoided the Great Depression by reacting to what Friedman called '' The Great Contraction'' is "highly dubious".
James Tobin James Tobin (March 5, 1918 – March 11, 2002) was an American economist who served on the Council of Economic Advisers and consulted with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and taught at Harvard University, Harvard and Yale Uni ...
questioned the importance of velocity of money, and how informative this measure of the frequency of transactions is to the understanding of the various fluctuations observed in ''A Monetary History of the United States''. Economic historian Barry Eichengreen argued that because of the
gold standard A gold standard is a backed currency, monetary system in which the standard economics, economic unit of account is based on a fixed quantity of gold. The gold standard was the basis for the international monetary system from the 1870s to the ...
, which was at this point in time the chief monetary system of the world, the
Federal Reserve The Federal Reserve System (often shortened to the Federal Reserve, or simply the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a series of ...
's hands were tied. This was because, to retain the credibility of the gold standard, the Federal Reserve could not undertake actions like dramatically expanding the money supply as proposed by Friedman and Schwartz. Lawrence Mishel, distinguished fellow of the Economic Policy Institute, argues that wages have been kept low in the United States because of the Friedman doctrine, namely the adoption of corporate practices and economic policies (or the blocking of reforms) at the behest of business and the wealthy elite, which resulted in the systematic disempowerment of workers. He argues that the lack of worker power caused wage suppression, increased wage inequality, and exacerbated racial disparities. Notably, mechanisms such as excessive unemployment,
globalization Globalization is the process of increasing interdependence and integration among the economies, markets, societies, and cultures of different countries worldwide. This is made possible by the reduction of barriers to international trade, th ...
, eroded labor standards (and their lack of enforcement), weakened
collective bargaining Collective bargaining is a process of negotiation between employers and a group of employees aimed at agreements to regulate working salaries, working conditions, benefits, and other aspects of workers' compensation and labour rights, rights for ...
, and corporate structure changes that disadvantage workers, all collectively functioned to keep wages low. From 1980 to 2020, while economy-wide productivity rose almost 70 percent, hourly compensation for typical workers increased less than 12 percent, while the earnings of the top 1 percent and 0.1 percent increased 158 percent and 341 percent, respectively.


Selected bibliography

* ''A Theory of the Consumption Function'' (1957) . * '' A Program for Monetary Stability'' (Fordham University Press, 1960) 110 pp. online version * '' Capitalism and Freedom'' (1962), highly influential series of essays that established Friedman's position on major issues of public policy (excerpts) * '' A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960'', with Anna J. Schwartz, 1963; part 3 reprinted as ''The Great Contraction'' * "The Role of Monetary Policy", ''American Economic Review,'' Vol. 58, No. 1 (Mar. 1968), pp. 1–17 JSTOR presidential address to American Economics Association * "Inflation and Unemployment: Nobel Lecture", 1977, '' Journal of Political Economy''. Vol. 85, pp. 451–472. * '' Free to Choose: A Personal Statement'', with Rose Friedman, (1980), highly influential restatement of policy views * ''The Essence of Friedman'', essays edited by Kurt R. Leube, (1987) () * ''Two Lucky People: Memoirs'' (with Rose Friedman) (1998
excerpt and text search
* ''Milton Friedman on Economics: Selected Papers by Milton Friedman'', edited by Gary S. Becker (2008)


See also

* Causes of the Great Depression * David D. Friedman * History of economic thought * List of economists * List of Jewish Nobel laureates * List of Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients * Ludwig von Mises * Monetary/fiscal debate * Patri Friedman * " We are all Keynesians now"


Explanatory notes


References


Sources

* * *


Further reading

* * * Jones, Daniel Stedman. ''Masters of the Universe: Hayek, Friedman, and the Birth of Neoliberal Politics'' (2nd ed. 2014) * * *


External links


Collected Works of Milton Friedman
(Multiple Text, audio, video)
The Milton Friedman papers
at th
Hoover Institution Archives


at the University of Chicago Library
Profile
an

at Research Papers in Economics/RePEc *
Becker Friedman Institute
at the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

The Foundation for Educational Choice


at Scarlett

1976 lecture at NobelPrize.org
Nobel Memorial Prize acceptance speech
*
Milton Friedman vs. The Fed Bailout
by Michael Hirsh, ''
Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly news magazine based in New York City. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century and has had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned by Dev P ...
'', July 17, 2009
Four Deformations of the Apocalypse
David Stockman, ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', July 31, 2010 * *
A collection of Milton Friedman's works
; Videos * *
''Booknotes'' interview with Friedman on the 50th Anniversary Edition of F.A. Hayek's ''Road to Serfdom'', November 20, 1994.
*
''In Depth'' interview with Friedman, September 3, 2000
* * *
Free to Choose' (1980) a [PBS] TV series by Milton Friedman"
*

''Commanding Heights'', PBS, October 1, 2000, interview, profile and video
Milton Friedman
at the
Cato Institute The Cato Institute is an American libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Ed Crane, Murray Rothbard, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Koch Industries.Koch ...

Free to Choose Network
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