Milton Friedman

In 1932, while studying at Chicago University, Friedman met Rose Director, a shy but brilliant student at the same department. They got married six years later in 1938. She was also a free market economist and they frequently collaborated with each other professionally.

The couple had two children; Janet and David Friedman. David grew up to be a famous economist, legal scholar, and libertarian theorist, best known for his 1973 book ‘The Machinery of Freedom’.

Friedman died in San Francisco from heart failureon November 16, 2006. Although he was 94 years old at the time of his death he was still active in research work and contributed regularly to various journals.

Milton Friedman was born on July 31, 1912 in Brooklyn, New York. His parents Jenő Saul Friedman and Sára Ethel (née Landau) were Jewish emigrants from Beregszász in Carpathian Ruthenia, Kingdom of Hungary (now Berehove in Ukraine). Friedman was the youngest of his parents’ four children.

When he was a year old, the family relocated to Rahway, New Jersey. There his mother opened a dry good shop and his father was variously employed. Although the family was financially weak they had enough to eat and the environment at home was always warm and supportive.

In 1928, Friedman graduated from Rahway High School. Unfortunately, his father had passed away by this time, resulting in worsening financial condition at home. It became clear that if he wanted to study further he would have to finance it himself.

Fortunately, he was awarded a competitive scholarship to Rutgers University. Financing rest of the expenses by doing odd jobs, he earned his B.A. degree in 1932, majoring in mathematics and economics.

Subsequently, he joined the University of Chicago with a scholarship in economics and earned his M.A. degree in 1933. He then received a fellowship at Columbia University and spent the 1933-1934 studying statistics with Harold Hotelling.

In 1935, unable to get a job in the academic field, Friedman moved to Washington and started working for the National Resources Committee. Here he worked on a large consumer budget survey, a work that culminated in his 1957 book, ‘Theory of the Consumption Function’.

Next in autumn of 1937, he moved to National Bureau of Economic Research. Here he was appointed as an assistant to Simon Kuznets and started working with him on professional income.

In 1940, he received appointment as an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Unfortunately, anti Semitic environment at the university as well as political difference with the faculty forced him to leave.

Subsequently in 1941, he joined the US Treasury Department as an advisor. Here he mostly worked on wartime tax policies and advocated Keynesian policy of taxation.

In 1943, Friedman joined the Division of War Research at Columbia University as a mathematical statistician. He remained here until the end of the Second World War. His work during this period focused mainly on problems concerning weapons design and military tactics.

Subsequently he spent the year 1945-1946 as an associate professor at the University of Minnesota. Concurrently in 1945, he submitted ‘Incomes from Independent Professional Practice’ which he had jointly authored with Simon Kuznets, to the University of Columbia as his doctoral dissertation. He was awarded the degree in 1946.

In the same year, he joined the University of Chicago as an Associate Professor of Economic Theory. He remained with the university for thirty years and considered it to be his intellectual home.

In 1947, he attended the opening meeting of the Mont Pèlerin Society, an organization dedicated to the study and preservation of free societies. Inspired by the talks, he now became actively involved in the political process of the country.

In 1948, he was promoted to the position of a full professor. In the same year, he was persuaded by the Director of Research at the National Bureau of Economic Research to rejoin the organization. Here he worked on the role of money in the business cycle.