Milton Friedman was born in New York. He earned his doctorate from Columbia University in 1946. He won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1976 for "his achievements in the field of consumption analysis, monetary history and theory, and for his demonstra tion of the complexity of stabilization policy." He was an economic advisor to President Nixon and president of the American Economic Association in 1967.

Friedman is probably the most well known advocate of free markets, largely due to the fact that his economic work is easy for the layperson to read. He is also widely recognized for his Monetarist stance. At the time that Keynesian economics hel d sway, he was arguing the validity of the quantity theory of money., (the idea that the price level is dependent on the money supply, i.e., MV=PQ).

Friedman believes that the problems of inflation and short-run unemployment would be solved if the Federal Reserve board were required to increase the money supply at a constant rate,(money-supply rule).

Works by Milton Friedman:

Capitalism and Freedom

Free to Choose

An Economist's Protest: Columns on Political Economy

A Monetary History of the United States

Studies in the Quantity Theory of Money

Essays in Positive Economics

A Theory of the Consumption Function

Income From Independent Professional Practice