Friedman's Presidential Address to the American Economic Association is compared with a slightly later lecture he gave to the American Philosophical Society. The earlier piece is found to be poorly structured, badly argued, and full of clear mistakes. The later one, although pursuing the same...

It is noted that although in fact it lacks the revolutionary content commonly ascribed to it, Friedman's Presidential Address to the American Economic Association is very highly regarded as an original and formative contribution. It is argued that close attention to the literature shows it was...

The citation for Milton Friedman's Nobel Prize of 1976 points to three contributions. In two cases, the principal works the Committee must have had in mind are easy to identify. The question of what was intended by the third – ‘his demonstration of the complexity of stabilization policy' –...

It is noted that Harry G. Johnson was widely admired for his broad knowledge of economics, and particularly for the excellence and synthesizing quality of much of his writing. His discussions of the “Phillips curve” and related matters are considered. It is found that they are brief,...

It is widely accepted that the importance of Friedman's Presidential Address to the American Economic Association lies in its criticism of policy based on the Phillips curve. However, it is argued that a reading of the text does not support such a view, and this and other considerations suggest...

Friedman (1968) – his famous Presidential Address to the American Economic Association – contains an elementary error right at the heart of what is usually supposed to be the paper's crucial argument. That is the argument to the effect that during an inflation, changing expectations shift...