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Focusing on the period of Milton Friedman's collaboration with Anna J. Schwartz, this work examines the history of debates between Friedman and his critics over money's causal role in business cycles. Professor Hammond shows that critics' reactions were grounded in two distinctive features of Friedman and Schwartz's way of doing economic analysis - their National Bureau business-cycle methods and Friedman's Marshallian methodology. With the postwar dominance of Cowles Commission methods and Walrasian methodology, Friedman and Schwartz's monetary economics appeared to contemporary critics to be "measurement without theory". Drawing extensively on unpublished materials, Professor Hammond's treatment offers new insights on Friedman's attempts to settle debates with his critics and his eventual recognition of the methodological impediments. The book will interest monetary economists and macroeconomists, as well as historians of economics and methodologists.
List of contents
Introduction; 1. Theory and measurement at the National Bureau; 2. Origins of Friedman's Marshallian methodology; 3. Origins of the monetary project; 4. Critiques from within the National Bureau; 5. Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc, part I; 6. Reactions to the Monetary History; 7. Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc, part II; 8. Friedman and his critics on the theoretical framework; 9. The Great Depression; 10. Measurement without measurement: Hendry and Ericsson's critique; Conclusion; Bibliography.
Summary
This 1996 work examines the history of debates between Friedman and his critics over money's causal role in business cycles from 1948 to 1991.
