From Keynes to Friedman via Mints: Resolving the Dispute over the Quantity Theory Oral Tradition

The Keynes Before Keynes Milton Friedman (chapter 2 [1956], 3-4) asserted that “Chicago was one of the few academic centres at which the quantity theory continued to be a central and vigorous part of the oral tradition throughout the 1930’s and 1940’s”. Friedman sought to “nurture” the revival of the quantity theory by linking it to this Chicago “oral tradition”. According to Friedman the “flavor” of this oral tradition was captured in a model in which the quantity theory was “in the first instance a theory of the demand for money”. Friedman added that to “the best of my knowledge no systematic statement of this theory as developed at Chicago exists, though much of it can be read between the lines of [Henry] Simons’ and [Lloyd] Mints’s writings”. He also enlisted the names of Frank Knight and Jacob Viner in support of his assertion. ISBN: 185196767