EDMUND S. PHELPS (1933-)
Prêmio Nobel 2006
Edmund Phelps obteve o prêmio do Banco Central da Suécia, em memória de Alfred Nobel, no ano de 2006, como reconhecimento pelas suas análises sobre "as compensações intertemporais nas políticas macroeconômicas".
Edmund S. Phelps graduou-se no Amherst College em 1955 e obteve seu doutorado em Yale em 1959. Foi professor de Economia nas universidades de Yale e Pennsilvania. Em 1971, incorporou-se ao departamento de economia da Columbia University de New York onde é o McVickar Professor of Political Economy desde 1982. Também é diretor do Center on Capitalism and Society e do Earth Institute na mesma universidade.
Embora tenha obtido o Prêmio Nobel por seus trabalhos sobre macroeconomia, Phelps sempre foi um estudioso em temas de microeconômica e foi esta que lhe deu seu prestígio no mundo acadêmico. Estudou, especialmente, o problema da informação imperfeita dos participantes nos mercados e os efeitos das crenças e das expectativas sobre os resultados dos mercados. Adicionalmente, estudou o mercado de trabalho detalhadamente. Nos anos 60 propôs uma teoria rudimentar da 'taxa natural de desemprego', a partir da qual poderia se compreender como os mercados geravam desemprego. Esse foi um trabalho seminal de grande repercussão em toda a teoria econômica e, certamente, teve repercussões macroeconômicas.
A idéia básica de Phelps é que, como os agentes econômicos possuem informação incompleta, os preços se determinam em função das expectativas. Assim, sucede também no mercado de trabalho, onde as expectativas de inflação levaram ao aumento dos salários.
Nos anos 50 e 60 estava muito na moda a análise denominada "Curva de Phillips" que apontava a necessidade de encontrar uma compensação entre a taxa de desemprego e a taxa de inflação. Phelps propôs que as expectativas de inflação 'empurravam' a Curva de Phillips afastando-a da origem. A inflação, portanto, dependia da taxa de desemprego e das expectativas.
OBRAS
"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