Milton Friedman and Economic Debate in the United States, 1973–1976, Vol. 3

The third installment in the definitive account of the famed economist's role in economic debate—and his lasting influence on economic policy. Milton Friedman is widely recognized as one of the most significant contributors to economics in the modern age. Yet no previous study has distilled Friedman’s vast body of writings into an authoritative account of his research, his policy views, and his interventions in public debate. Through his sweeping series on the most influential economist of the second half of the twentieth century, Edward Nelson closes this gap: Milton Friedman and Economic Debate in the United States is the defining narrative on the famed public intellectual—the first to grapple comprehensively with Friedman’s research output, economic framework, and legacy. Volume 3 chronicles Friedman’s activities from 1973 to 1976, encompassing his final years at the University of Chicago and a period that saw his further ascension in national prominence. In the mid-1970s, economic news dominated American political discourse as the nation endured double-digit inflation and recession. It was during this time that Friedman’s views became a center of economic debate in both the research world and public debate, while his explanation for “stagflation” formed part of the critique of stabilization policy that would lead to his 1976 Nobel Prize. Nelson details the controversies that Friedman faced in the media—including his contrarian stances on inflation’s cure, the economic implications of oil price shocks, and the social responsibility of business—and how Friedman concluded that the world needed a “new Adam Smith” to press the case for free markets. Drawing upon a large body of documentary sources, interviews with dozens of the people closest to Friedman, and his own expertise in Friedman’s research area of monetary analysis, Nelson provides the definitive account of the formative (and uneven) events in Friedman’s foray into life as a public intellectual and how his research permanently shifted economic thinking.