Edmund S. Phelps

McVickar Professor of Political Economy
Economics Department
Columbia University

Edmund S. Phelps is professor of economics at Columbia University and director of the Center on Capitalism and Society. A graduate of Yale, he taught at Pennsylvania University before moving to Columbia University. In 1981 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences (USA) and was made a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association in 2000.

A leading figure in modern economic theory, Edmund S. Phelps gained early recognition for his ideas on economic growth, infl ation, unemployment and their patterns in economic booms and downturns. His work chiefly addressed the impact of information and expectations on investment, innovation, costs and prices.

His numerous publications and articles include Microeconomic Foundations of Employment and Infl ation Theory (1970), Structural Slumps: The Modern Equilibrium Th eory of Unemployment, Interest, and Assets (1994), The 1990s Slump: Causes and Cures (1996), Rewarding Work: How to Restore Participation and Self-Support to Free Enterprise (1997).

Edmund S. Phelps is a member of the Econometric Society. He holds Honorary Doctorates from the universities of Rome “Tor Vergata” (2001), Mannheim (2001), Lisbon (2003), Paris-Dauphine (2004) and Iceland (2004). An international Festschrift in his honor was published in 2001 under the title Knowledge, Information and Expectations in Modern Economics, by Philippe Aghion, Roman Frydman, Joseph Stiglitz and Michael Woodford.