2006: Edmund S. Phelps

 

 

 

 

 

Edmund S. Phelps (1933-)

Premio Nobel 2006

Edmund S. Phelps (1933-)

Edmund Phelps obtuvo el premio del Banco Central de Suecia en memoria de Alfred Nobel en 2006 en reconocimiento a sus análisis sobre "las compensaciones intertemporales en las políticas macroeconómicas".

Edmund S. Phelps se graduó en el Amherst College en 1955 y obtuvo su doctorado en Yale en 1959. Fue profesor de Economía en las universidades de Yale y Pennsilvania. En 1971 se incorporó al departamento de economía en la Columbia University de New York, en la que es McVickar Professor of Political Economy desde 1982. Es también director del Center on Capitalism and Society, Earth Institute en la misma universidad.

A pesar de que obtuvo el Premio Nobel por sus trabajos sobre macroeconomía, Phelps ha estado siempre interesado en temas de microeconomía y ha sido la microeconomía lo que le ha dado su prestigio en el mundo académico. Especialmente en el problema de la información imperfecta de los participantes en los mercados y en los efectos de las creencias y las expectativas sobre los resultados de los mercados. Ha estudiado también en detalle el mercado laboral. En los años 60 propuso una rudimentaria teoría de la 'tasa natural de desempleo' a partir de la cual podía comprenderse cómo los mercados generaban desempleo. Ese fue un trabajo seminal de gran repercusión en toda la teoría económica y, ciertamente, con repercusiones macroeconómicas.

La idea básica de Phelps es que como los agentes económicos tienen información incompleta, los precios se determinan en función de las expectativas. Así ocurre también en los mercados laborales en los que las expectativas de inflación conducirán a subidas salariales.

En los años 50 y 60 estaba muy de moda el análisis denominado "Curva de Phillips" que apuntaba a la necesidad de encontrar una compensación entre la tasa de desempleo y la tasa de inflación. Phelps propuso que las expectativas de inflación 'empujaban' la Curva de Phillips alejándola del origen. La inflación, por tanto, depende de la tasa de desempleo y de las expectativas.

obras DESTACADAS

·         "A Test for the Presence of Cost Inflation in the United States, 1955-57", 1961, Yale Economic Esssays.

·         "The Golden Rule of Accumulation: A fable for growthmen", 1961, AER.

·         "The New View of Investment: A Neoclassical analysis", 1962, QJE

·         "The Accumulation of Risky Capital: A Sequential Utility Analysis", 1962, Econometrica

·         "Substitution, Fixed Proportions, Growth and Distribution", 1963, IER

·         Fiscal Neutrality Toward Economic Growth, 1965.

·         "Second Essay on the Golden Rule of Accumulation", 1965, AER

·         "Anticipated Inflation and Economic Welfare", 1965, JPE

·         Golden Rules of Economic Growth, 1966.

·         "Investment in Humans, Technological Diffusion, and Economic Growth", with R.R. Nelson, 1966, AER

·         "Factor-Price-Frontier Estimation of a 'Vintage' Production Model of the Postwar United States Nonfarm Business Sector" with C. Phelps, 1966, REStat

·         "Phillips curves, Expectations of Inflation and Optimal Unemployment Over Time", 1967, Economica.

·         "On Second-Best National Saving and Game-Equilibrium Growth", with R.A. Pollack, 1968, RES

·         Microeconomic Foundations of Employment and Inflation Theory, 1970.

·         "Money, Public Debt, Inflation and Real Interest", with E. Burmeister, 1971, JMCB.

·         Inflation Policy and Unemployment Theory: The cost-benefit approach to monetary planning, 1972.

·         "Money, Public Expenditure and the Labor Supply", 1972, JET

·         "The Statistical Theory of Racism and Sexism", 1972, AER

·         "Taxation of Wage Income for Economic Justice", 1973, QJE

·         "Inflation in a Theory of Public Finance", 1973, Swedish JE.

·         Fiscal Neutrality Toward Economic Growth, 1974

·         "The Indeterminacy of Game-Equilibrium Growth in the Absence of an Ethic," 1975, in Phelps, editor, Altruism, Morality and Economic Theory

·         "Linear Taxation of Wealth and Wages for Intergenerational Lifetime Justice: Some Steady-State Cases," with J.A. Ordover, 1975, AER

·         "Linear 'Maximin' Taxation of Wage and Property Income on a "Maximin' Growth Path", 1976, in Balassa and Nelson, editors, Economic Progress, Private Values and Public Policy:

·         "Social Policy and Uncertain Careers: Beyond Rawls's Paradigm Case," 1976, in Grieson, editor, Urban and Public Economics

·         "Recent Development in Welfare Economics: Justice et Equite," 1977, in Intrillagator, editor, Frontiers of Quantitative Economics

·         "Stabilizing Powers of Monetary Policy under Rational Expectations", with J. Taylor, 1977, JPE.

·         "Rawlsian Growth: Dynamic Programming of Capital Wealth for Intergeneration 'Maximin' Justice," with J.G. Riley, 1978, RES

·         "Commodity-Supply Shock and Full-Employment Monetary Policy", 1978, JMCB

·         "Inflation Planning Reconsidered," 1978, Economica

·         "Trans-National Effects of Fiscal Shocks in a Two-Country Model of Dynamic Equilibrium", 1978, CROCH

·         "Disinflation without Recession: Adaptive guideposts and monetary policy", 1979, WWA.

·         "On the Concept of Optimal Taxation in the Overlapping-Generations Model of Economic Growth," with J.A. Ordover, JPubE

·         Studies in Macroeconomic Theory, 2 vols, 1979-80.

·         "Cracks on the Demand Side: A Year of Crisis in Theoretical Macroeconomics", 1982, AER

·         "A Model of Non-Walrasian General Equilibrium: Its Pareto Inoptimality and Pareto Improvement," with G.A. Calvo, 1983, in Tobin, editor, Macroeconomics, Prices and Quantities.

·         ."Implicit Contracts and the Social Contract" 1983, in Dornbusch and Simonson, editors, Inflation, Debt and Indexation

·         "The Trouble with Rational Expectations and the Problem of Inflation Stabilization", 1983, in Frydman and Phelps, editors, Individual Forecasting and Aggregate Outcomes

·         Political Economy, 1985

·         "Profits Theory and Profits Taxation", 1986, IMF Staff Papers

·         The Slump in Europe, with J.P. Fitoussi, 1988

·         "Optimum Fiscal Policy When Monetary Policy is Bound by a Rule," with K. Velupillai, 1988, in Arrow and Boskin, editors, Economics of Public Debt

·         "A Working Model of Slump and Recovery from Disturbances to Capital-Goods Demand in an Open Non-Monetary Economy", 1988, AER

·         "New Channels in the Transmission of Foreign Shocks," 1989, in Calvo et al., editors, Debt, Stabilization and Development

·         Seven Schools of Macroeconomic Thought, 1990

·         "The Effectiveness of Macropolicies in a Small Open-Economy Dynamic Aggregative Model," 1991, in Brainard et al., editors, Money, Macroeconomics, and Economic Policy

·         "A Working Model of Slump and Recovery from Disturbances to Capital-Goods Demand in a Closed Non-Monetary Economy," 1991, in Nell and Semmler, editors, Nicholas Kaldor and Mainstream Economics

·         "Testing 'Keynesian' Unemployment Theory against 'Structuralist' Theory: Global Evidence from the Past Two Decades," 1991, in Nerlove, editor, Issues in Contemporary Economics

·         "Consumer Demand and Equilibrium Unemployment in a Customer-Market Incentive-Wage Economy", 1992, QJE

·         "Macroeconomic Shocks in a Dynamized Model of the Natural Rate of Unemployment," with H.T. Hoon, 1992, AER

·         "Pro-Keynesian and Counter-Keynesian Implications of the 'Structuralist' Theory of Unemployment and Interest under the Classic Two-Sector View of Capital and Production", 1993, in Knoester, editor, Taxation in the United States and Europe.

·         "Fiscal Policy and Economic Activity in the Neoclassical Theory with and without Bequests," with G. Kanaginis, 1994, Finanz Archiv

·         Structural Slumps: The Modern Equilibrium Theory of Unemployment, Interest and Assets, 1994

·         "Low-Wage Employment Subsidies versus the Welfare State", 1994, AER

·         "The Origins and Further Development of the Natural Rate of Unemployment," 1994, in Cross, editor, The Natural Rate Twenty-Five Years On

·         "The Structuralist Theory of Employment", 1995, AER

·         "Autobiography of E.S. Phelps" 1995, in Heertje, Makers of Modern Economics

·         "Payroll Taxes and Wage Subsidies", 1995, Testimony

·         Rewarding Work: How to Restore Participation and Self-Support to Free Enterprise, 1997

·         "Growth, Wealth and the Natural Rate: Is Europe's Jobs Crisis a Growth Crisis?" with H.T. Hoon, 1997, European ER

·         "The Rise and Downward Trend of the Natural Rate", with G. Zoega, 1997, AER

·         "Natural-rate theory and OECD unemployment," with G. Zoega, 1998, EJ

·         "Moral Hazard and Independent Income in a Modern Intertemporal-Equilibrium Model of Involuntary Unemployment and Mandatory Retirement," 1998, in Chichilnisky, editor, Markets, Information and Uncertainty