Edmund Phelps is among the most important economists of his generation. He developed a new understanding of unemployment and inflation and went on to rethink the roots of innovation.
In this book, Phelps tells the story of his role in reshaping economic theory, offering a powerful personal account of a creative and rewarding career. My Journeys in Economic Theory charts two major phases of Phelps's work, illuminating the breadth of his contributions to the field. First, introducing the expectations of wage setters and cofounding the "equilibrium" rate of unemployment, he built the microeconomic foundations for the employment theory pioneered by Keynes and Hicks. More recently, he conceived a theory of "mass flourishing" in which individuals' creativity and society's dynamism fuel grassroots innovation and generate job satisfaction in the process.
Phelps recounts his vivid experiences in the world of economics as well as his relationships with luminaries such as John Rawls, Thomas Nagel, Paul Samuelson, and Paul Volcker. At its core, this book shares the joy of intellectual achievement: the excitement of coming up with a new idea that radically departs from prevailing views and the satisfaction of exercising one's own ingenuity instead of applying or developing others' models.
Edmund Phelps, the winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2006, is the founding director of the Center on Capitalism and Society and McVickar Professor Emeritus of Political Economy at Columbia University.
Table of Contents
Preface Introduction: Formative Years 1. Starting My Career: Golden Rule of Saving and Public Debt 2. A New Direction: Uncertainty and Expectations 3. Unemployment, Work’s Rewards, and Job Discrimination 4. Altruism and Rawlsian Justice 5. Supply-Siders, New “Classicals,” and an un-Keynesian Slump 6. A Revolutionary Decade 7. A Festschrift, a Nobel, and a New Horizon 8. The Great Wave of Indigenous Innovation, Meaningful Work, and the Good Life Epilogue Acknowledgments Notes Index
