Review

This article was originally presented as a speech to the Chartered Financial Analysts of St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, January 17, 2007.

This article uses extensive archival material from several countries to bring together scattered information about Milton Friedman’s views and predictions regarding U.S. monetary policy developments after 1960 (i.e., the period beyond that covered by his and Anna Schwartz’s Monetary History of the United States). The author evaluates these interpretations and predictions in light of subsequent events.

It is widely acknowledged that the Fed can control the average inflation rate over a period of time reasonably well. Because of this and the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC’s) long-standing commitment to price stability, the author argues that the FOMC has an implicit long-run inflation objective (LIO)—lower and upper bounds to the long-run inflation rate. 

Postwar U.S. data show that consumption growth “Granger-causes” output and investment growth, which is puzzling if technology is the driving force of the business cycle. The author asks whether general equilibrium models with information frictions and non-technology shocks can rationalize the observed causal relationships. His conclusion is they cannot.