Traditional Culture Encyclopedia - Weather forecast - The economist milton friedman's detailed information, works ... everything are urgently needed! Everything, big or small! Thank you! !

The economist milton friedman's detailed information, works ... everything are urgently needed! Everything, big or small! Thank you! !

Milton Milton Friedman (191July 2002-1October 20061October) is an American economist who studies macroeconomics, microeconomics, economic history, statistics and laissez-faire capital. 1976, he won the nobel prize in economics in recognition of his contributions in the fields of consumption analysis, money supply theory and history, and stability of policy complexity.

Friedman is the author of Capitalism and Freedom, published in 1962. He advocates minimizing the role of the government and allowing the free market to operate in order to safeguard political and social freedom. His political philosophy emphasizes the advantages of free market economy and opposes government intervention. His theory has become one of the main economic bases of libertarianism, and has had a great influence on Reagan's economic policies in the United States and many other countries since the 1980s.

all one's life

Friedman was born into a working-class Jewish family in new york. His father is Jeno Saul Friedman and his mother is Sarah Ethel Landau (1892-? ), the two came to the United States from the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Ukraine) to meet and work in a sweatshop. Friedman is the fourth child and the only boy in the family. His three sisters include Tilly Friedman (19 19-? ), Helen Friedman (1920-? ), and Ruth Friedman (192 1-? )[ 1]。 In high school, after Friedman's father died, his family moved to Ravi, New Jersey.

He finished high school before 16 years old and entered Rutgers University on a scholarship. Friedman, who originally planned to become an actuary, studied mathematics at first, but his grades were mediocre. 1932 got a bachelor's degree in literature, and went to the university of Chicago for a master's degree the following year. 1933 graduated from the university of Chicago. In the first economics class, the seats are arranged in alphabetical order. He followed a girl named director Ross, and they got married six years later, and they haven't changed. Friedman once said that all his works were reviewed by Ross, and even laughed that Ross was the only person who dared to argue with him after he became an academic authority. When Friedman died, Ross said, "I have nothing but time."

After graduation, he made a living for the New Deal and approved many early New Deal measures to solve the difficult economic situation at that time, especially many public construction plans of the New Deal. He went to Colombia to continue studying economics, econometrics, institutional and practical economics. After returning to Chicago, he was hired by Henry Schultz as a research assistant to help complete the paper "Demand Reasoning and Calculation". While working in the National Bureau of Economic Research, he finished a book in 1940, pointing out that doctors' monopoly led to their income being much higher than that of dentists, which caused controversy in the bureau and made the book not published until after the war.

Friedman taught at the University of Wisconsin for some time, but he had to return to work in the government because he was blocked by anti-Semitic elements in the economics department.

From 194 1 to 1943, he served as an adviser to the US Treasury Department, studied wartime tax policies, supported Keynesian tax policies, and really helped popularize the withholding income tax system. From the age of 43 to 45, he participated in the research group of harold hotelling and W. Allen Wallis of Columbia University, analyzing data for weapons design, strategy and metallurgical experiments. 1945, he went to the university of Minnesota with george stigler, a later Nobel laureate in economics. 1946 was awarded a doctorate by Columbia University, and then returned to the University of Chicago to teach economic theory, during which he studied the role of money in the business cycle for the National Bureau of Economic Research. This is a major watershed in his research.

Friedman once described in his autobiography that when he worked for Roosevelt's New Deal in 194 1 43, "I was a thorough Keynesian at that time". As time went on, Friedman's views on economic policy gradually changed. He set up a research group on money and banking at the University of Chicago, and with the help of Anna Schwartz, an economic historian, published a great article on the history of American money. At that time, he challenged the views of famous Keynesian economists and criticized them for ignoring the importance of money supply and financial policy to the economic cycle and inflation. He has been a professor in the Department of Economics of the University of Chicago for more than 30 years, advocated liberal economy, and founded the famous "Chicago School" with his disciples and grandchildren.

He said that he usually opposes government intervention plans, especially the regulation of market prices, and he believes that prices play an indispensable signal function in the allocation of resources by market mechanisms. In the book "American Monetary History", he suggested that the Great Depression was actually caused by the government's improper control of the money supply. Then in 2006, he said, "You know what? It is strange why people still think that Roosevelt's policies helped us get out of the Great Depression. The problem at that time was that you had a bunch of unemployed machines and unemployed people. How can you solve their problems by setting up an industry monopoly group and raising prices and wages? "

Then he worked as a professor of economics at the University of Chicago until 1976. During these 30 years, he has shaped the Department of Economics of the University of Chicago into a close and complete school of economics, known as the Chicago School of Economics. Under the leadership of Friedman, many members of the Chicago School won the Nobel Prize in Economics. 65438-0953-54 went to teach at Cambridge University in England as a visiting scholar. From 65438 to 0977, Friedman also joined the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. Friedman 1988 won the national medal of science award.

1992 Becker, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics, described Friedman as probably the most famous economist in the world. He can express the most difficult economic theory in the simplest language. He is also an excellent speaker, and he can improvise at any time, which is very convincing. Lei Dingming, director of the Economic Development Research Center of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, described the Buddha's thinking as fast as lightning. It is said that the debate has never been lost. "No one dares to say that he won the debate, because it is an infinite honor to argue with him, and not many people can talk to him for two minutes."

Friedman is an academic family. His wife, Ross, is an economist, and his wife and brother, Director Aaron, are prestigious law professors at the University of Chicago. Friedman has two children, including his daughters Jenny Friedman and david friedman. David himself is an important scholar of anarchic capitalism. David's son, Patrick, graduated from Stanford University and worked in Google in 2006.

He died of heart failure at his home in San Francisco on June165438+1October 65438+June 2006.

Important works:

Essays of positive economics); Positive economics;

Consumption function theory;

Capitalism and freedom;

Price theory: a clause text;

A History of American Currency (1867- 1960) was co-authored with Anna J. Schwartz.

Stand on the opposite side of Keynes

The Great Depression in 1930s made Keynes's theory of insufficient effective demand and the government's policy of intervening in the economy famous. The economic prosperity of western society for more than 20 years after World War II made Keynes's thoughts shine brilliantly. But it was in the heyday of Keynesianism-1950s that the monetary school with Friedman as the main founder was born under the banner of opposing the Keynesian revolution.

Friedman's theory has two important characteristics: insisting on economic freedom and emphasizing the role of money.

He explicitly opposed Keynes's idea of government intervention. Friedman believes that the market mechanism plays the most important role in the process of social and economic development. Market economy has a natural tendency to achieve full employment, but it may take some time to achieve full employment just because the adjustment of prices and wages is relatively slow. If the government intervenes in the economy too much, it will destroy the role of the market mechanism, hinder economic development, and even cause or aggravate economic turmoil.

He also strongly criticized the fiscal policy advocated by Keynes. Friedman believes that under the condition of constant money supply, the increase of government expenditure will lead to the increase of interest rate, which will lead to the decrease of private investment and consumption, thus producing a "crowding out effect" to offset the increase of government expenditure, so monetary policy is the focus of all economic policies.

Anti-inflation flag bearer

The "stagflation" of the economy in the 1970s brought a historical opportunity for the monetary school to make great efforts. The long-term implementation of Keynesian expansionary economic policy has finally brought bad consequences to the western economy. After the 1970s, economic development in various countries slowed down, deficits became larger and larger, unemployment increased, and inflation rate became higher and higher. In this economic situation, the monetary school, which has developed for more than 10 years, chose inflation as its main goal and put forward a series of policy propositions centered on stabilizing the currency and opposing inflation.

Unlike other economists, Friedman completely blamed the government for inflation. "No government is willing to bear the responsibility of inflation, even if it is not very serious. Government officials often find excuses to blame greedy entrepreneurs, rigid trade unions, profligate consumers, Arab sheikhs, bad weather and some irrelevant reasons. Undoubtedly, entrepreneurs are greedy, trade unions are rigid, consumers are not frugal, Arab sheikhs raise oil prices, and the weather is often abnormal. However, all these can only increase the price of individual commodities, but not the price of general commodities. "

Friedman believes that the only way to eradicate inflation is to reduce government intervention in the economy and control monetary growth. The way to control money growth is to implement the "single rule", that is, the central bank should "publicly announce and adopt a fixed money supply growth rate for a long time" when formulating and implementing monetary policy.

Because these policy propositions meet the needs of western economic development under the new situation, they have won many approvers and followers, and are especially appreciated by the government. From 65438 to 0979, the British Conservative government, with Margaret Thatcher as prime minister, put the monetarism theory into practice and carried out a set of monetarism policies. In the "economic recovery plan" put forward by President Reagan after he took office, the formulation of a stable monetary growth policy proposed by the monetary school was also taken as the main project; Countries such as Switzerland and Japan, which are regarded as "successfully controlling inflation", claim that their "secret of success" lies in the implementation of the monetary school's "stable growth rate of money supply" policy. The monetary school became famous for a while and was widely regarded as a substitute after the Keynesian school. Friedman was even called the "anti-inflation standard bearer".

The winner of "guilty"

1976, Friedman won the Nobel Prize in Economics. At the award ceremony, when he stood up from his seat to accept the award certificate issued by the King of Sweden, an audience suddenly raised the banner of "Freedom belongs to the Chilean people", stood up and protested, shouting "Capitalism steps down, Friedman steps down", and riots broke out at the venue.

The cause of the incident has to start with the military coup in Chile. In 1970s, Chilean soldier Pinochet launched a military coup to overthrow Allende's government. After the socialist Allende came to power, he pursued nationalization and planned economy. These policies have caused economic retrogression and chaos in Chile. After Pinochet came to power, he began to reform the market economy by powerful means. The reform plan was planned by a group of young American economists such as Sachs, many of whom studied under Friedman. This economic transformation has caused serious unemployment and poverty in Chile, which has been opposed by the left. Pinochet suppressed them and intensified domestic contradictions. As a result, some people accused Friedman of being involved in the Chilean issue, and the Swedish Chilean Committee called Friedman "an economist responsible for Chile's current unemployment and hunger policy." Against this background, it is not surprising that there were protests at the award ceremony.

The embarrassment at the award ceremony also showed the influence of Friedman's economic policies in the 1970s and 1980s. Whether in developed or developing countries, Friedman's thoughts and ideas have penetrated into every corner of their economic operation. Later facts proved that Chile's transition to a market economy was successful, and inflation in developed capitalist countries also came down.

However, the story has two sides once again: the inflation rate in Britain dropped from 22% in 1980 to 4% in 1984, while the number of unemployed people rose from 1984 to 3 million; Similarly, 1979, the inflation rate and unemployment rate in the United States were 12.7% and 5.9% respectively. Four years later, these two figures became 3.2% and 7.6%. Prices have dropped, but people are suffering from unemployment. "insist!" This is Friedman's consistent creed. Thus, a miracle appeared: from 1993 to 2000, the American economy experienced eight years of economic growth with low inflation and low unemployment rate. Some people say that the American economy was planted by Reagan and enjoyed by Clinton. Is that really the case? What is the role of the fu is old in it? Friedman, who is good at statistical analysis, is probably hard to answer himself.

Milton friedman visited China three times.

Measured by academic contribution and social influence, milton friedman, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, can be said to be the most important economist in the world in the 20th century. This great figure in academic circles has a strong interest in China. In his autobiography "Two Lucky Men" co-authored with his wife Ross, apart from the United States, another country with the largest space is China.

Friedman visited China three times in 1980, 1988 and 1993. In his autobiography, he wrote: "Three visits to China are one of the most amazing experiences in our life ..."

The visit of 1980 is the only official invitation. The inviter is the Institute of World Economics of China Academy of Social Sciences. The inviter hopes that Friedman will give a speech on the world economy, inflation and the application of the market in the planned economy society. At this time in China, the process of reform has just begun, and people almost know nothing about the way to go in the future. They just know that the past road is impassable. Friedman never heard anyone say anything nice about the Cultural Revolution. But he also found that people often know little about economic issues and basically know nothing about the operation of the market system. For example, in a discussion, a vice minister who is about to visit the United States asked, "Who is in charge of material distribution in the United States?" Friedman's reaction was "shock". He suggested that the vice minister go to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange to learn how the economic system works without a central distributor.

Friedman's judgment of China at this time is that the reform has just begun. And the possibility of duplication is not ruled out.

From 65438 to 0988, mainly under the arrangement of Zhang Wuchang, Friedman visited China for the second time. This visit to China is the most important of the three, not only because Friedman met with the main central leaders of China at that time, but also because his visit was wider, which enabled Friedman to have a deeper observation and understanding of China. At the same time, Friedman's viewpoint of free economy has been more clearly conveyed to the decision-makers and academic circles in China with the deepening reform in China.

During this visit, Friedman visited many prosperous commodity markets all over the country. In these markets, the guests really felt the vitality and vigor of China's economic development, and also saw the core problem that China faces in further reform, that is, whether the government is willing to give up some privileges for economic development.

From 65438 to 0993, Friedman visited China for the third time. At this time, China's reform, after repeated, resumed rapid development. Guests in China can already enjoy the same good service as those in other countries. In addition to Beijing and Shanghai, Friedman also visited Chengdu and Chongqing. Friedman was deeply impressed by the development of private enterprises and private businesses. At this time, however, it seems that the reform direction of China government is different from that of 1988. The government began to emphasize Japan and South Korea's control over the economy, which is the future direction. Friedman obviously couldn't agree with this. But at this time, China is no longer trying to absorb external knowledge as it did at the beginning of the reform. But on the other hand, Friedman's view on the relationship between market and government is more in line with China's practical problems. Is China moving towards a free market system or trying the "third way"? This problem which has been solved by Friedman will continue to haunt China for many years.

During his three visits to China, Friedman closely observed the social transformation from a planned economy system to a market economy system. He tried his best to introduce his understanding of the free market system to the people of China and express his thoughts. As an economist, he accomplished his task well and deeply influenced a large number of China people-many of whom can directly influence or even decide the development path of China. It can be said that in the past ten years, Friedman's original influence in the world has been extended to China, and China has benefited a lot from it.