Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman
Friedman in 2004
Born	(1912-07-31)July 31, 1912 Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Died	November 16, 2006(2006-11-16) (aged 94) San Francisco, California, U.S.
Nationality	American
Spouse(s)	Rose Friedman
Institution	Hoover Institution (1977–2006) Columbia University (1964–65) University of Chicago (1946–77) University of Cambridge (1954–55) University of Wisconsin, Madison (1940) Columbia University (1937–41; 1943–45) National Bureau of Economic Research (1937–40)
School or tradition	Chicago School
Alma mater	Columbia University (PhD) University of Chicago (MA) Rutgers University (BA)
Doctoral advisor	Simon Kuznets
Doctoral students	Phillip Cagan Harry Markowitz Lester G. Telser David I. Meiselman Neil Wallace Miguel Sidrauski
Influences	Smith Mill Fisher Paine Knight Kuznets Viner Hotelling Burns Hayek H. Jones H. C. Simons Stigler Schultz George
Influenced	Thatcher Becker Laar Greenspan Schwartz Bernanke DeLong Sowell Stein de Soto Polar Buckley Friedman Sumner Reagan Ron Paul Rand Paul Williams Cato Institute Pinochet and Chicago Boys Fraser Institute
Contributions	Price theory · Monetarism Applied macroeconomics Floating exchange rates Permanent income hypothesis Volunteer military Natural rate of unemployment · Friedman test
Awards	National Medal of Science (1988) Presidential Medal of Freedom (1988) Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (1976) John Bates Clark Medal (1951)
Information at IDEAS / RePEc
Signature

Milton Friedman (July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American economist who received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory, and the complexity of stabilization policy. With George Stigler and others, Friedman was among the intellectual leaders of the second generation of Chicago price theory, a methodological movement at the University of Chicago's Department of Economics, Law School, and Graduate School of Business from the 1940s onward. Several students and young professors that were recruited or mentored by Friedman at Chicago went on to become leading economists; they include Gary Becker, Robert Fogel, Thomas Sowell, and Robert Lucas, Jr.

Friedman's challenges to what he later called "naive Keynesian" theory began with his 1950s reinterpretation of the consumption function. In the 1960s, he became the main advocate opposing Keynesian government 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 employment above 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 an alternative macroeconomic viewpoint known as "monetarism", and argued that a steady, small expansion of the money supply was the preferred policy. His ideas concerning monetary policy, taxation, privatization and deregulation influenced government policies, especially during the 1980s. His monetary theory influenced the Federal Reserve's response to the global financial crisis of 2007–08.