ИПИ Библиотека

The noted Nobel Prize-winning economist, Milton Friedman, writes here on current issues of prevailing concern to every American citizen and taxpayer -- including inflation, its causes, and how to arrest it: monetary policy and the disappointing performance of the Federal Reserve Board: the recessions that continue to plague us: and the constraints that are placed upon the workings of a free market.
In more than 70 short essays, most of them written for his regular column in Newsweek magazine. Professor Friedman displays the powers of analysis and expression that have made him both the most widely respected economist in America today and a trusted advisor to our nation's leaders.
These short commentaries address six major themes, from issues of economic and political freedom, to governmental regulation and fiscal policy, to international economics. They reveal the dynamics behind many of our most pressing current problems, as well as Friedman's affirmation of America's most cherished ideals.

“Just as banks all around the country were closing, the Fed raised the discount rate; that’s the rate they charge for loans to banks. Bank failures consequently increased spectacularly. We might have had an economic downturn in the thirties anyway, but in the absence of the Federal Reserve System—with its enormous power to make a bad situation worse—it wouldn’t have been anything like the scale we experienced.”

Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman (1912-2006) was an American economist, statistician, a professor at the University of Chicago, and the recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (1976). Among scholars, he is best known for his theoretical and empirical research, especially consumption analysis, monetary history and theory, and for his demonstration of the complexity of stabilization policy. He was an economic advisor to U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Over time, many governments practiced his restatement of a political philosophy that extolled the virtues of a free market economic system with little intervention by government. As a leader of the Chicago school of economics, based at the University of Chicago, he had great influence in determining the research agenda of the entire profession. Milton Friedman's works, which include many monographs, books, scholarly articles, papers, magazine columns, television programs, videos, and lectures, cover a broad range of topics of microeconomics, macroeconomics, economic history, and public policy issues. 

The Economist described him as "the most influential economist of the second half of the 20th century…possibly of all of it".

Friedman was originally a Keynesian supporter of the New Deal and advocate of government intervention in the economy. However, his 1950s reinterpretation of the Keynesian consumption function challenged the basic Keynesian model. At the University of Chicago, Friedman became the main advocate for opposing Keynesianism. During the 1960s he promoted an alternative macroeconomic policy known as "monetarism". He theorized there existed a "natural rate of unemployment" and he argued the central government could not micromanage the economy because people would realize what the government was doing and change their behavior to neutralize such policies. He rejected the Phillips Curve and predicted that Keynesian policies then existing would cause "stagflation". Friedman's claim that monetary policy could have prevented the Great Depression was an attempt to refute the analysis of Keynes, who argued that monetary policy is ineffective during depression conditions, and that large-scale deficit spending by the government is needed to decrease mass unemployment. Though opposed to the existence of the Federal Reserve, Friedman argued that, given that it does exist, a steady, small expansion of the money supply was the only wise policy, and he warned against efforts by a treasury or central bank to do otherwise.

Influenced by his close friend George Stigler, Friedman opposed government regulation of many types. He once stated that his role in eliminating U.S. conscription was his proudest accomplishment, and his support for school choice led him to found The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. Friedman's political philosophy, which he considered classically liberal and libertarian, emphasized the advantages of free market economics and the disadvantages of government intervention and regulation, strongly influencing the opinions of American conservatives and libertarians.

In his 1962 book Capitalism and Freedom, Friedman advocated policies such as a volunteer military, freely floating exchange rates, abolition of medical licenses, a negative income tax, and education vouchers. His books and essays were well read and were even circulated illegally in Communist countries.

Most economists during the 1960s rejected Friedman's methodology, but since then they have had an increasing international influence (especially in the USA and Britain). Some of his laissez-faire ideas concerning monetary policy, taxation, privatization and deregulation were used by governments, especially during the 1980s. His monetary theory has had a large influence on economists such as Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve's response to the financial crisis of 2007–2010.