In A Monetary History of the United States, published in 1963, Friedman and Anna Jacobson Schwartz famously argued that the Great Depression was due solely and completely to the failure of the US Federal Reserve to expand the country’s monetary base and thereby keep the economy on a path of stable growth. Had there been no decline in the money stock, their argument goes, there would have been no Great Depression.
在1963年出版的《美国货币史》（A Monetary History of the United States）中，弗里德曼和安娜·雅各布森·施瓦茨（Anna Jacobson Schwartz）指出，大萧条完全仅仅是因为美联储没有扩大货币基础、保持经济的稳定增长路径导致的。如果货币存量没有下降，他们的观点认为，就不会有大萧条。