In his first testimonies and speeches after becoming Chairman, Volcker emphasized many of the arguments developed by academics for how inflation interfered with the efficient working of the economy. And he drew on Friedman's monetarist approach, both in its advocacy of low and stable inflation and in its prescriptions for policy implementation.
In a speech given just after the Federal Open Market Committee announced its adoption of a monetarist-style policy approach in October 1979, Volcker dismissed the notion that lowering inflation meant accepting permanently higher unemployment and suggested instead that the reverse was more likely to be the case.