Paul E. Fischer

Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom, was required reading in the second or third economics course that I took as an undergraduate student. I remember not agreeing with a fair bit of it, so it was not Professor Friedman's philosophy that struck my fancy. What struck me was that Professor Friedman did not employ formal economic models, with the associated jargon, charts, graphs, and equations. Instead, he employed simple economic reasoning conveyed in clear elegant prose. As a consequence, I learned my first important lesson about how economists think about problems, which has proven to be at least as valuable as the various tools of the trade that have been taught to me over the years.