Now in its fifth printing, this volume is a combined version of Milton Friedman's A Theoretical Framework for Monetary Analysis and A Monetary Theory of Nominal Income, two essays originally published in the Journal of Political Economy. Included are critical reviews by noted monetary theorists Karl Brunner and Allan Meltzer, James Tobin, Paul Davidson, and Don Patinkin, and Friedman's response to them....Presenting Friedman's statement -- important as a commentary on the history of economic thought and as a theoretical contribution in its own right -- alongside the views of his critics, this book offers enduring value for scholars and students alike.

The paper develops new methodology for the estimation of prewar GNP, taps previously unused data sources, and develops new estimates for the periods 1869-1908 and 1869-1928. Primary among the new data sources are direct measures of output in the transportation, communications, and construction sectors and estimates of the consumer price index. New measures of real GNP, nominal GNP, and the GNP deflator are developed. The new estimates of real GNP are as volatile on average over the business cycle as the traditional Kuznets-Kendrick series but dampen the amplitude of some cycles while raising the amplitude of others. The new estimates of the GNP deflator are distinctly less volatile than the traditional series and in fact no more volatile than those in the postwar period.