Tuesday, July 31, 2012, marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Hoover fellow Milton Friedman, a renowned American economist. He was also the Paul Snowden Russell Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Chicago, where he taught from 1946 to 1976, and a member of the research staff of the National Bureau of Economic Research from 1937 to 1981.

Floyd Arthur “Baldy” Harper was an American educator and economist whose ideas influenced libertarian thought. The F. A. Harper papers, which relate to laissez-faire economics and economic policy in the United States, now have an inventory available online.

More than two hundred fifty audiotapes in the Milton Friedman papers are available for listening after having been digitized by Hoover's audio lab. The earliest, recorded in 1961, captures a debate between Friedman and Senator Joseph Clark on the proper role of the federal government in which Friedman frames his argument around a critique of John F. Kennedy's inaugural address.

More than fifty audiotapes in the records of the Mont Pèlerin Society, an international organization of laissez-faire economists, have been digitized for preservation and access by Hoover's audio lab. Many of the tapes contain proceedings of four of the society's meetings, held from 1956 to 1960. The 1958 meeting, in Princeton, New Jersey, featured Friedrich A. von Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, William H. Hutt, and other economists discussing the welfare state, agricultural economics, inflation, and monetary policy.