No one believed that deflation was main monetary phenomenon, and no one believed in the importance of the central banks until milton freedman came along. He didn't persuade anyone to actually implement that in a reliable way which they were public about. But i do think he revolutionized the role the federal reserve, in the national banks, in the central banks of the world. The floating of exchange rates, i think, has been a great liberating force for any dynamic economy.
Journalist and author Nicholas Wapshott talks about his book Samuelson Friedman with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Milton Friedman and Paul Samuelson were two of the most influential economists of the last century. They competed for professional acclaim and had very different policy visions. The conversation includes their differences over the work of Keynes, their rivalry in their columns at Newsweek, and a discussion of their intellectual and policy legacies.