Friedman’s intellectual authority legitimated the currency futures market to the Treasury

Evidence

Shultz, though, had been a colleague of Friedman: he had been a professor in and then dean of the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business. “If it’s good enough for Milton,” he told Melamed and Harris, “it’s good enough for me.” — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 659

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader performativity thesis: economic authority (Friedman’s Chicago-school reputation) greased institutional adoption of the futures market — echoes how models gain institutional traction through key decision-makers’ social networks. — connects to: Economists’ endorsement legitimated derivatives markets that regulators viewed as gambling — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 1135; American law defined legitimate futures by physical delivery and outlawed cash settlement — Donald MacKenzie & Yuval Millo, Constructing a Market, Performing Theory, 58

Broader Connections

• Economists’ endorsement legitimated derivatives markets that regulators viewed as gambling #expands (0.82) — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 1135