Education milton friedman biography book
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Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative
Author: Jennifer Burns
Via Macmillan Publishers
“In Milton Friedman, the first full biography to employ archival sources, the historian Jennifer Burns tells Friedman’s extraordinary story with the nuance it deserves. She provides lucid and lively context for his groundbreaking work on everything from why dentists earn less than doctors, to the vital importance of the money supply, to inflation and the limits of government planning and stimulus. She traces Friedman’s long-standing collaborations with women, including the economist Anna Schwartz; his complex relationships with powerful figures such as the Federal Reserve chairman Arthur Burns and the Treasury secretary George Shultz; and his direct interventions in policymaking at the highest levels. Most of all, Burns explores Friedman’s key role in creating a new economic vision and a modern American conservatism. The result is a revelatory biography of America’s first neoliberal—an
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Milton Friedman: A Biography
Born the son of Hungarian immigrants, Friedman went on to become a pioneer in mathematics, a contrarian, then a standard-bearer in macroeconomic theory, and finally, a major figure in the American libertarian movement. As an adviser to the Reagan ledning, a widely read columnist, and a television star he played an influential role in fostering the rejuvenation of free marknad thought in the s.
After taking degrees in mathematics and economics at Rutgers, the 20 year old Friedman studied economics at Chicago and Columbia, Hence, he was exposed to the methodological controversies affecting the discipline in depression stricken America.
After a two year stint at Treasury, Friedman joined a group of mathematicians at SRG, where he worked on
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Book Review: Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative
Her book is by no means a hagiography. At various points, she criticizes Friedman, sometimes unfairly. She’s also a little unfair to his wife, Rose Friedman, an economist in her own right. But that makes Burns’s many positive evaluations of Milton’s work all the more credible.
Although she is, as noted, a historian and not an economist, and sometimes makes little slips in her economic exposition, her big-picture understanding of economics is impressive, especially on one of the toughest issues to understand: monetary policy. Indeed, she lays out the fact that the Federal Reserve does not directly control interest rates better than many economists I’ve read.
Early intellectual life / One of the most impressive aspects of the book is Burns’s narrative about Friedman’s early attempts to, as we said in the s and s, “find himself.” Where did he fit in economics? On the one hand, some of the strongest influencers of his thinking