When economists are called “influential,” it usually means they’ve changed the way other economists think. By that standard, Milton Friedman was one of the most influential economists of all time. He revolutionized the way economists think about consumption, about money, about stabilization policy, and about unemployment.
He demonstrated the power of committing oneself to a few simple assumptions about human behaviour and then relentlessly pursuing their logical implications. He developed and taught new ways of interpreting data, testing his theories by their ability to explain multiple disparate phenomena. His successes were spectacular and his techniques were widely emulated.
In several cases, Friedman’s methods inspired the creation of entire new subfields including the economic analysis of law, the quantitative approach to economic history, the economics of crime and punishment, the economics of family relationships, and the economic approach to finance—leading to multiple Nobel prizes for Friedman’s acolytes.