A Person in Macroeconomics History, Essay Example

Macroeconomics has become an indispensible part of our lives as it handles the performance, organization and decision-making of various economic systems from national and to global ones. As far as I`m concerned, the history of macroeconomics means nothing without people, whose contribution made the field advance and develop, and personally I acknowledge the effort of Milton Friedman, the world famous economist  known for his monetary theory.

Milton Friedman was one of the leading economists and political philosophers of twentieth century. He was born on July, 31, 1912, in Brooklyn, New York and was the only son of Jewish immigrants Jen? Friedman and Sára Landau. When Friedman was one, the family moved from Brooklyn to Rahway, New Jersey. Milton began high school at the age of twelve – two years earlier the majority of the students did, in September 1924. He must have really stood out to be admitted at such early age – tiny, one of smartest kids, loud and funny. He competed in national oratorical contest on the Consumption sponsored by New York Times, for which his name appeared in the paper and he received a medal (Ebenstein 9-10).

When Milton entered college, the Great Depression was a year away and the economy was booming. Friedman credited two instructors, Homer Jones and Arthur Burns with stirring and nourishing his emerging interest in economics. Thus, three of the most prominent figures in monetary theory and practice in the twentieth century – Friedman, Burns, and Jones – were all at Rutgers in the early 1930s (Crain and Lee 21-22).

After graduating from Rutgers in June 1932 with a bachelor`s degree in economics, Milton entered the University of Chicago, which was a brainchild of John D. Rockefeller. “By this time, I have had definitely transferred my primary allegiance to economics, so the choice was easy”, he said (Friedman,33). After graduating from the University of Chicago, Friedman decided to attend Columbia for his second year of graduate studies (Friedman 34).

His career has been amazing in length and scope. He published his first article in 1935, over seventy years ago. Friedman is typically associated with the University of Chicago, which he attended as a graduate student in the early 1930s and where he taught as a professor from 1946 to 1976. He was also vitally influenced by his graduate studies at Columbia and his work for the National Bureau of Economic research in New York (Ebenstein 45).

“His most significant scholarly accomplishments were in monetary history and theory.”(Ebenstein, 6) A monetary History of The United States was published in 1963 with the coauthor of Anna Jacob Scwartz, which was a landmark work in the history of economic thought in 1867 – 1960 that changed the view that The Great Depression in the United States was mostly caused by real, as opposed to monetary, forces. This was a great breakthrough, undercutting much support for Keynesian, Marxian, and welfare-state outlooks. Milton posed his peak influence on economics in the time period from the late 1950s through the 1970s and in the broader society from the late 1970s to 1980s (Crain and Lee 37).

Friedman`s methodology was rejected by the majority of economists, but still most of the thoughts concerning the taxation, monetary policy and privatization were largely used in 1980s by government. Ben Bernanke was significantly influenced by the monetary theory as well as the response to the financial crisis of 2007-2010 of the Federal Reserve.

All in all, Milton Friedman is one of the noble people whose enormous contribution to macroeconomics cannot be denied. He is a person of immense success, recipient of the Noble prize in economics, professor at the University of Chicago, and one of the unique people who has done a lot for the sake of the global scientific development.

Works Cited

Crain, Cynthia D., and Lee, Dwight R. Milton Friedman. Morgan Reynolds Pub.. 2009. Print.

Friedman, Milton, and Friedman, Rose D. Two Lucky People: Memoirs. Chicago: The Uniersity of Chicago Press, 1999. Print.

Ebenstein, Lanny. Milton Friedman: A Biography. New York: Palgrave MACMILLAN, 2007. Print.