The Monetarists

"""[The Monetarists] should be of keenest interest to historians of economic thought and to monetary historians, for whom the careful detail, thorough citations of primary sources, and attention to the work of even the less commonly celebrated Chicagoans, will be most appreciated."" * Journal of Economic Literature * “George Tavlas provides a fascinating, fresh, and highly policy-relevant look at the monetary tradition at the University of Chicago over three crucial decades. He uses facts and draws on unpublished sources to challenge well-known economic interpretations, focus on key monetary policy proposals, show that monetarism is dynamic, and demonstrate how Milton Friedman did not invent monetarism, but rather developed it out of a beautiful Chicago tradition.” -- John B. Taylor | Stanford University ""This book presents a fascinating and well-documented discussion of the origins and development of the economics of monetarism and its roots in Chicago economics. Tavlas dissects the tangled history of monetarist ideas and their origins as solutions to policy problems predating even the Great Depression. A rich account of the development of central ideas and the role of many economists in forming monetarist thought, this is an important study of a body of ideas that shaped, and continue to shape, the field of economics."" -- James Heckman | recipient of the 2000 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics | University of Chicago “In this pathbreaking book, George Tavlas lays out the history of the Chicago monetary tradition from the classical economists to Frank Knight, Jacob Viner, Paul Douglas, Henry Simons and Lloyd Mints to Milton Friedman. This book sets the record straight on all the debates that have raged on the subject. It will set the standard for research on the key deep origins of modern monetary policy.”  -- Michael Bordo | Rutgers University “Tavlas provides a fascinating intellectual history of the monetarist tradition at the University of Chicago. It successfully debunks some prior simplistic characterizations and instead offers a deep probe with nuances and complexities along with some common threads of thought. Within this backdrop, Milton Friedman’s contributions to monetary economics are seen to have both emerged from and modified the perspectives of his intellectual predecessors."" -- Lars Peter Hansen | recipient of the 2013 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics | University of Chicago “Determined scholar George Tavlas unearths the secrets of how the Chicago School molded Milton Friedman’s thinking, bringing free markets and monetarism to prominence in world affairs. His story is a must-read for understanding history.” -- William L. Silber | New York University"