Edmund S. Phelps

Edmund Strother Phelps (born July 26, 1933 in Evanston , Illinois ) is an American economist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics (2006).

Edmund S. Phelps, 2008

Life

Phelps was born in Illinois and moved to New York with his family when he was six . In 1951 he went to Amherst College to economics to study. After his BA in 1955, he went to Yale , where he studied under the later Nobel Prize winners Thomas Schelling and James Tobin . In 1959 he did his Ph.D. , after that he worked for the RAND Corporation for a short time , but went to the Cowles Foundation , an economic research institute in Colorado Springs, in 1960 to continue his studies. During this time he was already teaching at Yale. At the Cowles Foundation, he did research on the Solow model . As part of his studies, he published a famous publication in 1961, in which he indicated that it was not production per capita that should be maximized , but consumption per capita. This is the case when all wages are consumed and all interest income is saved, as Phelps showed. An optimal savings rate is achieved when the interest rate of an economy corresponds to the growth rate. This realization came as a golden rule savings rate in the growth theory one. Another criticism of the Golden Rule, that they, unlike the Ramsey rule of Frank P. Ramsey no time preferences into account.

During his research he had the opportunity to collaborate with many leading economists such as David Cass and Tjalling C. Koopmans , who were instrumental in influencing his work.

In 1966 he left Yale and went to the University of Pennsylvania as a professor of economics . Between 1969 and 1970 he spent a year in the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University . His studies there prompted him to do research outside of macroeconomics . In 1971 Phelps went to Columbia University and did research on topics such as inflation taxes and the influence of fiscal policy on inflation . He published several books and several writings during his studies. In 1978 he received a Guggenheim scholarship .

In 1982 he became McVickar Professor of Political Economy at Columbia. He founded the Center on Capitalism & Society at Columbia in 2001 and is still chairman of it today.

Phelps is considered a sharp critic of US President Donald Trump's economic policy . It feels like “like economic policy in times of fascism [...]. The leader controls the economy and tells companies where to go. "

Awards (selection)

• 1980: Admission to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• 1981: Admission to the National Academy of Science
• 2000: Admission to the American Economic Association
• 2001: Honorary doctorate from the University of Mannheim
• 2001: Honorary doctorate from the University of Rome
• 2004: Honorary doctorate from the University of Paris-Dauphine
• 2004: Honorary Doctorate from the University of Iceland
• 2006: Honorary doctorate from the Institut d'études politiques de Paris
• 2006: Nobel Prize in Economics "for his analysis of intertemporal target conflicts in macroeconomic policy "
• 2007: Honorary doctorate from the Universidad de Buenos Aires
• 2007: Honorary Doctorate from Tsinghua University
• 2008: Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor
• 2008: World Economy Prize from the Institute for World Economy
• 2008: the Universidad de Buenos Aires founds the Catedra Phelps and names a prize in the Phelps Medal for Innovation
• 2011: Admission to the Russian Academy of Sciences
• 2012: Honorary Patron of the University Philosophical Society at Trinity College Dublin
• 2014: Friendship Prize

Books

• Golden Rules of Economic Growth: Studies of Efficient and Optimal Investment. WW Norton & Company , 1966, ISBN 0-393-09708-0
• Inflation Policy and Unemployment Theory. The Cost-Benefit Approach to Monetary Planning. WW Norton & Company , 1972, ISBN 0-393-33057-5
• Economic Justice , Penguin Books , 1974, ISBN 0-14-080876-0
• Individual Forecasting and Aggregate Outcomes: 'Rational Expectations' Examined. with Roman Frydman; et al., Cambridge University Press , 1983, ISBN 0-521-25744-1
• Seven Schools of Macroeconomic Thought , Oxford University Press , ISBN 978-0-19-828333-1 , 1990
• Structural Slumps: The Modern Equilibrium Theory of Employment, Interest and Assets , Harvard University Press , 1994, ISBN 0-674-84373-8 .
• Rewarding Work: How to Restore Participation and Self-Support to Free Enterprise , Harvard University Press , 1997, ISBN 978-0-674-02694-0
• Designing Inclusion , Cambridge University Press , ISBN 0-521-81695-5 , 2003
• Mass Flourishing: How Grassroots Innovation Created Jobs, Challenge, and Change , Princeton University Press , 2015, ISBN 0-691-16579-3

See also

• Phillips curve ( Alban W. Phillips 1958)
• Taylor rule (after John B. Taylor )

Individual evidence

1. ^ Nobel laureate Phelps on Donald Trump: "Economic policy as in fascism". In: Spiegel Online . January 27, 2017. Retrieved June 9, 2018 . 

Web links

Commons : Edmund Phelps  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Phelps' own homepage
• Phelps' homepage at Columbia University (English)
• Professor Edmund S. Phelps Wins 2006 Nobel Prize in Economics , Columbia News (English)
• “The US economy lacks innovative strength” , Frankfurter Rundschau , August 2010
• “We need creative destruction in Europe” , Die Welt , August 2014
• “Uncertainty is good”: Interview with Edmund Phelps , winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics , profil , March 2015

• Literature by and about Edmund S. Phelps in the catalog of the German National Library