Milton Friedman Dead At 94

A great man. Milton Friedman has died:

A free-market economist, Friedman preached free enterprise in the face of government regulation and advocated a monetary policy that called for steady growth in money supplies.

His ideas played a pivotal role in informing the governing philosophies of world leaders like former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and former U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

Friedman believed that economic stabilization policy did not operate like a thermostat, because of the 'long and variable lag' between policy actions and their ultimate effects.

St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President William Poole, another noted monetarist, said much of modern central bank thinking stemmed from Friedman's work. Poole said Friedman's most important contribution was to bring theoretical economic thinking to bear on a range of public policy issues.

"Before Milton, economists were not taken seriously by public policy-makers," Poole said, citing the influence of Friedman's work on the issues of U.S. military conscription, school vouchers and tax policy, as well as his better-known contribution on the importance of money supply to inflation.

"He was an extraordinarily important figure in the profession," Poole said. Friedman called for a steady and predictable monetary policy as the surest guarantee against excessive fluctuations in the general price level and in the level of economic activity.

In 1976 Friedman's years of teaching and nearly two-dozen books were recognized with the Nobel Prize for economic science.