Edmund Phelps
Edmund Phelps
Edmund Strother Phelps, Jr.is an American economist and the winner of the 2006 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Early in his career he became renowned for his research at Yale's Cowles Foundation in the first half of the 1960s on the sources of economic growth. His demonstration of the Golden Rule savings rate, a concept first devised by John von Neumann and Maurice Allais, started a wave of research on how much a nation ought to spend on present...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEconomist
Date of Birth26 July 1933
CountryUnited States of America
Workers in decent jobs view the economy as unjust if they or their children have virtually no chance of climbing to a higher rung in the socioeconomic ladder.
Those of us born into vitalist and expressionist cultures must hope that governments will draw back from shutting down the modernist project of exploring, experimenting, and imagining - of voyaging into the unknown - that has been essential for rewarding lives.
Overpaying the banks for their toxic assets could contribute capital, but that may not be politically feasible or attractive.
An indictment of entitlements has to focus on the huge 'social wealth' that the welfare state creates at the stroke of the pen. Yet statistical tests of the effects of welfare spending on employment yield erratic results.
As a grandson of farmers in downstate Illinois, I have long admired the dedication of farmers to their work and have written about the role of agriculture in American innovation.
Some economists believe that the Greeks' work ethic and thrift can pull them through. But the classical virtues can do nothing to offset the dearth of innovation that plagues the economy.
Companies like Google and Facebook may offer jobs allowing or requiring imagination and creativity, but the whole of Silicon Valley accounts for only 3 percent of national income and a smaller percentage of national employment.
After a major loss of dynamism in the 1960s, productivity growth rates began dropping in most countries, falling by half in the U.S. in the 1970s and more or less ceasing altogether in France, Germany and Britain in the late 1990s.
Italy and France could lop off their excessive wealth through a one-time tax on private wealth.
I think the 19th century is an extraordinary period with a welling up of creativity and all kinds of experimentation and exploration going on at least until 1940.
Statistical studies are all over the lot about the pluses and minuses of raising the minimum wage.
My thinking has always been that the worst problem we have with regard to lack of inclusion is the terribly low labor force participation rates and terribly high unemployment rates of young men, especially young men in ethnic minority groups and, in particular, young black men.
Narrow banks could restart effective intermediation and ensure that consumers and employment-creating small and medium-size enterprises are adequately financed and can contribute to the reactivation of the economy.
My view is that innovation has declined in the everyday processes that businesses tinker with incrementally as they try to become more productive over time.