A fringe economist’s idea for flexible exchange rates went mainstream within two decades

Evidence

When Milton Friedman published his article calling for flexible exchange rates in 1953, fewer than 5 percent of economists worldwide shared his opinion; by the end of the 1960s, approximately 90 percent of economists did, and they were joined by powerful figures within government and the banking community. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 440

Categorization

• QUESTION: What exactly explains such a rapid and total reversal of professional opinion? Worth chasing the underlying mechanism beyond just the MPS campaign.
• SEED: How a deliberate campaign by a coordinated intellectual network flipped an entire profession’s consensus — the infrastructure of idea propagation.
• XREF: connects to: Floating exchange rates triumphed despite starting as a minority view even among neoliberals — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 445; Austrian school economists converted from gold standard to floating rates — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 431; Floating exchange rates were dismissed as law-breaking behavior until the 1960s — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 427

Broader Connections

• Floating exchange rates triumphed despite starting as a minority view even among neoliberals #corroborates (0.92) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 445
• Floating exchange rates were dismissed as law-breaking behavior until the 1960s #corroborates (0.85) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 427
• Austrian school economists converted from gold standard to floating rates #corroborates (0.80) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 431