Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman, recipient of the 1976 Nobel Prize for
Economic Science, has been a Senior Research Fellow at the
Hoover Institution, Stanford University, since 1977. He is also
Paul Snowden Russell Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus
of Economics at the University of Chicago, where he taught from
1946 to 1976, and was a member of the research staff of the
National Bureau of Economic Research from 1937 to 1981.
Professor Friedman was awarded the Presidential Medal of
Freedom in 1988 and received the National Medal of Science the
same year. He is widely regarded as the leader of the Chicago
School of monetary economics, which stresses the importance of
the quantity of money as an instrument of government policy and
as a determinant of business cycles and inflation.
In addition to his scientific work, Professor Friedman has also
written extensively on public policy, always with primary
emphasis on the preservation and extension of individual
freedom. His most important books in this field are (with Rose
D. Friedman) Capitalism and Freedom (University of Chicago
Press, 1962); Bright Promises, Dismal Performance (Thomas
Horton and Daughters, 1983), which consists mostly of reprints
of tri-weekly columns that he wrote for Newsweek from 1966 to
1983; and (with Rose Friedman) Free to Choose (Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 1980), which complements a ten-part TV series of
the same name, shown over PBS in early 1980, and (with Rose D.
Friedman) Tyranny of the Status Quo (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
1984), which complements a three-part TV series of the same
name, shown over PBS in early 1984.
He was a member of the President's Commission on an
All-Volunteer Armed Force (1969-70) and of the President's
Commission on White House Fellows (1971-73). He was a member of
President Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board, a group of
experts outside the government, named in early 1981 by
President Reagan.
He has also been active in public affairs, serving as an
informal economic adviser to Senator Goldwater in his
unsuccessful campaign for the presidency in 1964, to Richard
Nixon in his successful campaign in 1968, to President Nixon
subsequently, and to Ronald Reagan in his 1980 campaign.
He has published many books and articles, most notably A Theory
of the Consumption Function (University of Chicago Press,
1957), The Optimum Quantity of Money and Other Essays (Aldine,
1969), and (with A. J. Schwartz) A Monetary History of the
United States (Princeton University Press, 1963), Monetary
Statistics of the United States (Columbia University Press,
1970), and Monetary Trends in the United States and the United
Kingdom (University of Chicago Press, 1982).
Professor Friedman is a past president of the American Economic
Association, the Western Economic Association, and the Mont
Pelerin Society, and is a member of the American Philosophical
Society and of the National Academy of Sciences.
He also has been awarded hon