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. His work represents a lifelong project to put โpeople as we know themโ into economic theory.
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 Phelpsโs work, illuminating the breadth of his contributions to the field. First, introducing the expectations of wage setters and cofounding the โequilibriumโ rate of unemployment, he built the microeconomic foundations for the employment theory pioneered by Keynes and Hicks. More recently, he conceived a theory of โmass flourishingโ superseding Schumpeter and Solowโs conception of the process of innovatingโa theory in which individualsโ creativity and societyโs dynamism fuel grassroots innovation and generate job satisfaction in the process.
Phelps recounts his vivid experiences in the world of economicsโfierce arguments, competition and collaboration, and the good fortune of time spent among some great figuresโas 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 oneโs own ingenuity instead of applying or developing othersโ models. Telling the story of a life packed with intellectual adventure, My Journeys in Economic Theory provides a profound vision of a dynamic, modern economy that offers lives rich with creativity and meaning.