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What Would Milton Friedman Have Thought of the Great Recession?
Author(s) -
Sumner Scott
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
american journal of economics and sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.199
H-Index - 38
eISSN - 1536-7150
pISSN - 0002-9246
DOI - 10.1111/ajes.12097
Subject(s) - keynesian economics , recession , economics , interpretation (philosophy) , great depression , great recession , positive economics , monetary policy , philosophy , political science , law , linguistics
Milton Friedman died in [Friedman, M, 2006], right before the onset of the Great Recession. Unfortunately, we will never know how Friedman would have interpreted this event. However, we can draw some inferences from his published views on the Great Depression, as well as his views on more recent monetary policy, especially in Japan. It seems likely that Friedman would have blamed the Fed for insufficiently expansionary monetary policy during 2008 and 2009, a view that is quite different from the conventional conservative interpretation of events.