Friedman lived to see free market reforms spread in the former communist world and Latin America, but played down his own influence.

"I hope what I wrote contributed to that, but it was not the moving force," Friedman told The New York Sun in March 2006. "People like myself, what we did was keep these ideas open until the time came when they could be accepted."

Born in New York City on July 31, 1912, Friedman began developing his economic theories during the Great Depression when President Franklin D. Roosevelt based his New Deal on the ideas of Britain's John Maynard Keynes, the most influential economist of the time.

Keynes argued that the government should intervene in economic affairs to avoid depressions by increasing spending and controlling interest rates.

Friedman graduated from Rutgers University in 1932 and earned his master's degree the following year at the University of Chicago.

After working for the National Resources Commission in Washington from 1935 to 1937, he served on the staff of the National Bureau of Economics Research in New York from 1937 to 1945 and received his doctorate from Columbia University in 1946.

After World War II, he taught at the University of Minnesota, then returned to the University of Chicago. He became a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in 1977.

Friedman married Rose Director in 1938. They had two children, Janet and David, and Rose was co-author of some of his books.

Among his most famous books were: "Price Theory," 1962 (with Rose Friedman); "Capitalism and Freedom," 1962 (with Anna J. Schwartz); "An Economist's Protest," 1972 and "There Is No Such Thing As a Free Lunch," 1975.

Friedman wrote columns for Newsweek from 1966 to 1983 and was one of the few economists to bridge the gap between academia and the public. He supported Barry Goldwater in 1964 and Richard Nixon in 1968 and served on Nixon's commission for an All-Volunteer Army in 1969 and 1970.

"Among economic scholars, Milton Friedman had no peer," Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said. "The direct and indirect influences of his thinking on contemporary monetary economics would be difficult to overstate."

The Friedmans started the foundation that bears their names in 1996 to promote and advocate parental choice in education.

Ed Crane, president of the Cato Institute, a think tank that promotes free market concepts, said that "ultimately, what Milton believed in was human liberty and he took great joy in trying to promote that concept."

Friedman is survived by his wife and two children.

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