The Future of Monetarism after Milton Friedman

Michael Bordo

No 34765, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: On the fiftieth anniversary of Milton Friedman receiving the Nobel Prize in economics, I reflect on the legacy of monetarism – his revolutionary idea. Friedman developed the modern quantity of money in 1956 as a challenge to the prevailing Keynesian view that “money did not matter.” Friedman’s empirical and historical research made a strong case that changes in the money supply, largely instituted by the monetary authorities, account for much of the macro instability in the twentieth century including the Great Recession 1929-1933 and the Great Inflation 1965 -1982. Friedman’s ideas were at the base of the creation of modern macroeconomics, and of the adoption by many central banks of rules based monetary policy as a guidepost to maintain credibility for low inflation. His emphasis on monetary aggregates as the key monetary policy tool has been superseded by the use of policy interest rates, but the monetary aggregates are still useful as a crosscheck against incipient high inflation.

JEL-codes: E12 E31 E32 E41 E42 E51 E52 E58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-01
Note: ME
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