section_path: History of economic thought/Post-WWII economics/Monetarism
section_name: Monetarism
paragraph_text: Monetarism
  
  Monetarism appeared in the 1950s and 1960s, its intellectual leader being Milton Friedman. Monetarists contended that monetary policy and other monetary shocks, as represented by the growth in the money stock, was an important cause of economic fluctuations, and consequently that monetary policy was more important than fiscal policy for purposes of stabilisation. Friedman was also skeptical about the ability of central banks to conduct a sensible active monetary policy in practice, advocating instead using simple rules such as a steady rate of money growth.
  
  Monetarism rose to prominence in the 1970s and 1980s, when several major central banks followed a monetarist-inspired policy, but was later abandoned again because the results turned out to be unsatisfactory.