Anna Jacobson Schwartz

American economist

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July 23, 2026

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Anna Jacobson Schwartz was an American economist known for her significant contributions to monetary economics. She is best recognized for her collaboration with Milton Friedman on the seminal work, "A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960". This book critically examined the role of money in the U.S. economy and argued that policy errors by the Federal Reserve significantly worsened the Great Depression. Schwartz's work, alongside Friedman's, challenged prevailing Keynesian economic theories and helped revive the importance of monetary policy in economic analysis.12

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monetarism
… (1963), Friedman, in collaboration with Anna J. Schwartz, presented a thorough analysis of the U.S. money supply from the end of the Civil War to 1960. This detailed work influenced other economists to take monetarism seriously.
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… (1963), Friedman, in collaboration with Anna J. Schwartz, presented a thorough analysis of the U.S. money supply from the end of the Civil War to 1960. This detailed work influenced other economists to take monetarism seriously.
Read More

Milton Friedman
Challenging Keynesian economics
…books he would coauthor with Anna J. Schwartz, A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960. Combining theoretical and empirical analysis with institutional insights, that volume provided an intricately detailed account of the role of money in the U.S. economy since the Civil War. Especially influential was the authors’ claim…
Read More
…books he would coauthor with Anna J. Schwartz, A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960. Combining theoretical and empirical analysis with institutional insights, that volume provided an intricately detailed account of the role of money in the U.S. economy since the Civil War. Especially influential was the authors’ claim…
Read More