What do you think?
Rate this book
My Journeys in Economic Theory
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 “people as we know them” 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 Phelps’s work, illuminating the breadth of his contributions to the field. First, introducing the expectations of wage setters and cofounding the “equilibrium” rate of unemployment, he built the microeconomic foundations for the employment theory pioneered by Keynes and Hicks. More recently, he conceived a theory of “mass flourishing” superseding Schumpeter and Solow’s conception of the process of innovating―a theory in which individuals’ creativity and society’s dynamism fuel grassroots innovation and generate job satisfaction in the process.
248 pages, Paperback
Published May 15, 2023
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 10, 2023
I received an inscribed copy of the book from Ned Phelps himself a few days before my thesis defense, a kind gesture from a person I admire, not least for his work ethic -- he continues to come to office as he approaches his 90s. As a young researcher, I found the book largely inspiring, particularly when he describes his early career days. Phelps' excitement about his idea of dynamism and mass flourishing permeates the entire book and every moment in his life is recounted as if leading to what he regards as his magnum opus.
And of course what's a memoir without some entertaining remarks on contemporaries,
And of course what's a memoir without some entertaining remarks on contemporaries,
I previously delved into Frank Knight's 1921 Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit; Keynes's 1921 A Treatise on Probability and his 1937 article "The General Theory of Unemployment"; and Friedrich Hayek's 1948 Individualism and Economic Order, but I was unable to get into [Robert] Lucas's way of thinking.
August 6, 2023
Meh, too much self praise. Does not seem like an honest review of his journey
August 3, 2023
Edmund Phelps is a particularly interesting thinker with work spanning various subfields within economics, and sometimes even intersecting with philosophy. That he is so interesting makes this memoir all the more disappointing. Phelps attempts to detail both the personal stories behind his academic contributions and the academic contributions themselves but does so only half-heartedly.
The memoir reads as though Phelps has lived a charmed life. There is almost none of the self-doubt or personal struggles that makes memoirs worth reading. For instance, James Tobin, Phelps would have us believe, prevented him from being promoted for tenure at Yale but this is skimmed over in the course of a paragraph. Phelps spends just as much time discussing that he had a feeling he was going to win the Nobel Prize and implying that it look him so long to be awarded the prize largely because he was the sole recipient. He even implies that the work that won him the Nobel, the "augmented Phillips Curve," was under-appreciated by other economists because his work had a theoretical foundation whereas Phillips' statistical relationship did not.
The explanations of Phelps' economics contributions aren't particularly clear: in particular, the discussions of debt and capital accumulation are especially confusing. Often, Phelps will make a distinction between, say, cookies and pastries without explaining why the distinction is meaningful. Even worse, several paragraphs later, just when you've thought you understood the distinction he will clarify that exactly the distinction you have in mind is certainly not the distinction he is talking about. This is especially frustrating.
One area where Phelps is clearer, and fairly convincing, is in his discussion of economic progress. His central proposition is that innovation comes not from scientists, as Schumpeter believed, but instead from the general population. He then goes on to argue that societal values drive this progress. The issue, however, is that he then goes on to argue that meaningful work is essential, and at one point delivers a half-baked rant against Universal Basic Income. Ironically, despite his faith in capitalism, when describing the joy people derive from work Phelps doesn't sound so different from a communist explaining that people will enjoy washing the dishes as soon as they have joint-ownership of the kitchen. Maybe Phelps is right, but it's also not necessarily the case that his source of life-satisfaction needs to be the source of others' life satisfaction as well.
If you're an especially big fan of Phelps maybe this is worth a read. Otherwise, either read another memoir or another book on economics, depending on what you're looking for.
The memoir reads as though Phelps has lived a charmed life. There is almost none of the self-doubt or personal struggles that makes memoirs worth reading. For instance, James Tobin, Phelps would have us believe, prevented him from being promoted for tenure at Yale but this is skimmed over in the course of a paragraph. Phelps spends just as much time discussing that he had a feeling he was going to win the Nobel Prize and implying that it look him so long to be awarded the prize largely because he was the sole recipient. He even implies that the work that won him the Nobel, the "augmented Phillips Curve," was under-appreciated by other economists because his work had a theoretical foundation whereas Phillips' statistical relationship did not.
The explanations of Phelps' economics contributions aren't particularly clear: in particular, the discussions of debt and capital accumulation are especially confusing. Often, Phelps will make a distinction between, say, cookies and pastries without explaining why the distinction is meaningful. Even worse, several paragraphs later, just when you've thought you understood the distinction he will clarify that exactly the distinction you have in mind is certainly not the distinction he is talking about. This is especially frustrating.
One area where Phelps is clearer, and fairly convincing, is in his discussion of economic progress. His central proposition is that innovation comes not from scientists, as Schumpeter believed, but instead from the general population. He then goes on to argue that societal values drive this progress. The issue, however, is that he then goes on to argue that meaningful work is essential, and at one point delivers a half-baked rant against Universal Basic Income. Ironically, despite his faith in capitalism, when describing the joy people derive from work Phelps doesn't sound so different from a communist explaining that people will enjoy washing the dishes as soon as they have joint-ownership of the kitchen. Maybe Phelps is right, but it's also not necessarily the case that his source of life-satisfaction needs to be the source of others' life satisfaction as well.
If you're an especially big fan of Phelps maybe this is worth a read. Otherwise, either read another memoir or another book on economics, depending on what you're looking for.
November 14, 2025
Critical Review , Bonne voyage with " My Journey in economic Theory " Book by Edmund Phelps
I rate the book a 5/5 stars.
My journeys in Economic Theory tells the story of the role of Edmund Phelps in reshaping aspects of economic theory over the past sixty years-first by putting the employment theory introduced by John Maynard Keynes and John Hicks onto microeconomic foundations and, in the past two decades, by replacing the growth theory of, Joseph Schumpeter and Robert Solow with theory in which innovation and job satisfaction, too, are fuelled primarily by the dynamism of a range of people working in the economy. Yet, these memoirs also tell the story of Phelps personal experiences in his career as an economic theorist: the fierce opponents, the competing claimants, the teacher who underestimated him, the great figures that fortunate to be close to, and the satisfaction of conceiving a radical departure from the prevailing understanding of innovation and create a new innovation , hence economic growth, and, more important, a huge departure from the prevailing perspective on work and life itself.
This book its already a summarise of his textbooks and papers had been published years ago, because he was mesmerized by reading many books in his teenage let him have a better idea of what the world is like , and , that gave me an idea about many pivotal thoughts , from its definition how macroeconomic which is about the determination of aggregates such an investment and saving , labour force , unemployment and interest rate might be connected to microeconomics which all about the behaviour of individual firms, workers , and investors. He talks about what he found as a sharp exchange between Jhon Maynard Keynes and Friedrich Hayek over the effects of what would be called fiscal stimulus and monetary stimulus, and he jumped to talk about uncertainty and expectation into unemployment theory about what firms generally doing by setting wages annually then typical firm.
In other side Phelps talks about open-economy version developed and tested against data, in serving to protect firms from competitors from abroad, induces them to boost their markups, he also presented among the theories that came out in place of both he neoclassical model and Keynes’s model , an embryonic “micro-macro theory” – a very informal theory of how financial gambles, technological developments, and structural forces drive the economy up down, when he was the first one make expectations a theoretical basis for Keynes’s assumption , or tent , that wages generally exhibit “stickiness”.
Phelps also pointed out important topics like inflation policy and unemployment theory, the cost benefit approach to Monetary planning and Fiscal policy ,saying that Monetary policy it’s the best to optimal inflation target , and such a policy would let the unemployment rate take wide swings without the benefit of any stabilization. He also talks about best jobs and feeling of self-respect in the chapter of unemployment, works rewards and job discrimination in “ The Statistical Theory of Racism and Sexism “ journal article , that show his social thoughts , especially talking about Altruism and Rawlsian Justice in some page of that book , led him to devote ,* Idea of Fairness*, on view about income distribution policy called “Maxi-Min”, this simple model was set out in his paper “Taxation of Wage Income foe Economic Justice” published in August 1973 by the Quarterly Journal of Economics.
The next chapters , Phelps exhibits Multiple textbook, papers , and theories about modern economics topics , like new classical and an un-Keynesian slump by a walk on the supply side , result that aggregate demand could be manged through either fiscal stimulus or monetary stimulus . Also in the chapter of revolutionary decade , he talks about transforming easter Europe economies after the collapse collapse of Soviet Union.
I liked the aggregate topics that Phelps addressed in that book , But its wasn’t enough clear to me as a critical reader , because he gave a comprehensive overview and excerpt from his previous books and papers , and the one who never take a look about his research he will get lost between the economic , philosophy and sociology theories. Even when he was answering some questions that he addressed, I couldn’t comprehend or grasp the core idea. This one of them its wasn’t clear for me: Would marginal tax rate in the very-high-wage-income brackets be sky-high? , A questions surrounding his book must be taken up , from my part , I need to make pervious back to read his papers and textbook. Maybe dig deep in his theories will make me change my mind about “ I like “ , when he was saying the Page 68 from that book : “ I always though that was the right word and < asymmetric> was not ” , and the Page 63 in that book , when he, said:” My interest was purely intellectual “ defend himself , after taking a point of view from his friend Jack about a book of Inflation policy , Jack said: it will make the people mad…” . I wasn’t happy when he used the word of “surprisingly” , trying to explain the relation between the prices and interest and employment, He said :<…the real asset price to jump up and (surprisingly) the real of interest to drop….” , here make me feel doubt about what he saying , because if talk about theoretical finding , we will rely on theoretical analysis based on hypotheses and probabilities , not surprises.
In general I liked his theories , especially when he diced to step away from neoclassical and Keynesian , using his own creativity and imagination his own theory “ Theory of indigenous innovation “ to conceive new methods and new things, He talk quiet shortly about Dynamism , flourishing and prospering .I was excited in that book to read about his personal life , but he did that in just few pages , with I understand that he was excited to talk a lot , and I say a lot about many Economists who knew them and interacted with them in his academic circle , I like when he talks about Trump tax cuts in the years 2017-2019 , and about his Noble prize , wish its was something was work on years before .
Edmund Phelps helped change the way we think about macroeconomic theory and policy, by introducing imperfect information and costly communication into the theory, and deriving their implications for the dynamics of inflation and unemployment, Phelps treated macroeconomics as a social science, whose subject matter is not just the choices people make but how people interaction groups. His pioneering efforts in developing a formal theory of the coordination mechanisms governing interactions led the way to a new kind of macroeconomics, one that was based on the interplay between the actions and expectations of individual actors, instead of being based on postulated relationships between macro aggregates.
That Book change my mind about Phelps and the journey to the academic life , he let me more excited to reed more , about the economic theories , and to dig deeper to understand how we can jump from small idea to a big theory , just we need to imagine and create our thought away from the dogma of the older generation , who they think that any new idea outside the theoretical foundation , its deviation from body of Economic thoughts.
I rate the book a 5/5 stars.
My journeys in Economic Theory tells the story of the role of Edmund Phelps in reshaping aspects of economic theory over the past sixty years-first by putting the employment theory introduced by John Maynard Keynes and John Hicks onto microeconomic foundations and, in the past two decades, by replacing the growth theory of, Joseph Schumpeter and Robert Solow with theory in which innovation and job satisfaction, too, are fuelled primarily by the dynamism of a range of people working in the economy. Yet, these memoirs also tell the story of Phelps personal experiences in his career as an economic theorist: the fierce opponents, the competing claimants, the teacher who underestimated him, the great figures that fortunate to be close to, and the satisfaction of conceiving a radical departure from the prevailing understanding of innovation and create a new innovation , hence economic growth, and, more important, a huge departure from the prevailing perspective on work and life itself.
This book its already a summarise of his textbooks and papers had been published years ago, because he was mesmerized by reading many books in his teenage let him have a better idea of what the world is like , and , that gave me an idea about many pivotal thoughts , from its definition how macroeconomic which is about the determination of aggregates such an investment and saving , labour force , unemployment and interest rate might be connected to microeconomics which all about the behaviour of individual firms, workers , and investors. He talks about what he found as a sharp exchange between Jhon Maynard Keynes and Friedrich Hayek over the effects of what would be called fiscal stimulus and monetary stimulus, and he jumped to talk about uncertainty and expectation into unemployment theory about what firms generally doing by setting wages annually then typical firm.
In other side Phelps talks about open-economy version developed and tested against data, in serving to protect firms from competitors from abroad, induces them to boost their markups, he also presented among the theories that came out in place of both he neoclassical model and Keynes’s model , an embryonic “micro-macro theory” – a very informal theory of how financial gambles, technological developments, and structural forces drive the economy up down, when he was the first one make expectations a theoretical basis for Keynes’s assumption , or tent , that wages generally exhibit “stickiness”.
Phelps also pointed out important topics like inflation policy and unemployment theory, the cost benefit approach to Monetary planning and Fiscal policy ,saying that Monetary policy it’s the best to optimal inflation target , and such a policy would let the unemployment rate take wide swings without the benefit of any stabilization. He also talks about best jobs and feeling of self-respect in the chapter of unemployment, works rewards and job discrimination in “ The Statistical Theory of Racism and Sexism “ journal article , that show his social thoughts , especially talking about Altruism and Rawlsian Justice in some page of that book , led him to devote ,* Idea of Fairness*, on view about income distribution policy called “Maxi-Min”, this simple model was set out in his paper “Taxation of Wage Income foe Economic Justice” published in August 1973 by the Quarterly Journal of Economics.
The next chapters , Phelps exhibits Multiple textbook, papers , and theories about modern economics topics , like new classical and an un-Keynesian slump by a walk on the supply side , result that aggregate demand could be manged through either fiscal stimulus or monetary stimulus . Also in the chapter of revolutionary decade , he talks about transforming easter Europe economies after the collapse collapse of Soviet Union.
I liked the aggregate topics that Phelps addressed in that book , But its wasn’t enough clear to me as a critical reader , because he gave a comprehensive overview and excerpt from his previous books and papers , and the one who never take a look about his research he will get lost between the economic , philosophy and sociology theories. Even when he was answering some questions that he addressed, I couldn’t comprehend or grasp the core idea. This one of them its wasn’t clear for me: Would marginal tax rate in the very-high-wage-income brackets be sky-high? , A questions surrounding his book must be taken up , from my part , I need to make pervious back to read his papers and textbook. Maybe dig deep in his theories will make me change my mind about “ I like “ , when he was saying the Page 68 from that book : “ I always though that was the right word and < asymmetric> was not ” , and the Page 63 in that book , when he, said:” My interest was purely intellectual “ defend himself , after taking a point of view from his friend Jack about a book of Inflation policy , Jack said: it will make the people mad…” . I wasn’t happy when he used the word of “surprisingly” , trying to explain the relation between the prices and interest and employment, He said :<…the real asset price to jump up and (surprisingly) the real of interest to drop….” , here make me feel doubt about what he saying , because if talk about theoretical finding , we will rely on theoretical analysis based on hypotheses and probabilities , not surprises.
In general I liked his theories , especially when he diced to step away from neoclassical and Keynesian , using his own creativity and imagination his own theory “ Theory of indigenous innovation “ to conceive new methods and new things, He talk quiet shortly about Dynamism , flourishing and prospering .I was excited in that book to read about his personal life , but he did that in just few pages , with I understand that he was excited to talk a lot , and I say a lot about many Economists who knew them and interacted with them in his academic circle , I like when he talks about Trump tax cuts in the years 2017-2019 , and about his Noble prize , wish its was something was work on years before .
Edmund Phelps helped change the way we think about macroeconomic theory and policy, by introducing imperfect information and costly communication into the theory, and deriving their implications for the dynamics of inflation and unemployment, Phelps treated macroeconomics as a social science, whose subject matter is not just the choices people make but how people interaction groups. His pioneering efforts in developing a formal theory of the coordination mechanisms governing interactions led the way to a new kind of macroeconomics, one that was based on the interplay between the actions and expectations of individual actors, instead of being based on postulated relationships between macro aggregates.
That Book change my mind about Phelps and the journey to the academic life , he let me more excited to reed more , about the economic theories , and to dig deeper to understand how we can jump from small idea to a big theory , just we need to imagine and create our thought away from the dogma of the older generation , who they think that any new idea outside the theoretical foundation , its deviation from body of Economic thoughts.
November 28, 2024
Ned Phelps is one of the greatest macroeconomists of the 20th century. As Paul Samuelson said when narrating a festshrift in 2001, he managed to "introduce imperfect information and knowledge, imperfect competition, and market frictions into macroeconomics," especially through his 1968 piece with Samuel Winters on wage setting under imperfect information. Even more importantly, he created the "microfoundations" of macro, especially through the edited book "Microeconomic Foundations," published in 1970. His early work on optimal savings rates, the problems with "embodied" technical expertise in capital, the "wedge" deficit financing creates for capital accumulation, and ideal tax structures were foundational and are still part of the basic corpus of modern econ. These works won him the Nobel Prize in 2006, which, he asked when he got the call and mentions more than once, was given to him alone, without any co-recipients. It's a healthy reminder that there is no award so high that people cannot make distinctions even within it.
The problem for the book is these core contributions take up only a few dozen pages, and much of the rest of it is taken up with writing his underused textbook Political Economy, his book "Structural Slumps" in the 1990s on problems with European labor markets, and, to my mind, his less interesting work on altruism, the dignity of work, and creativity, which seem more like vague gestures at theories than something concrete like his early work. The book does show his wide range though. Beyond working closely with Guillermo Calvo, Robert Mundell, John Taylor, Jeffrey Sachs, and others at Columbia University for most of his career, he was close with philosophers Thomas Nagel and John Rawls, and was a fanatical devotee of public performances from opera to dance. (He also spent his graduate and postgraduate years at Yale with James Tobin, who is shown as spiteful of anyone who challenged him, and spent years with almost any economist who mattered at RAND, Stanford, and the University of Pennsylvania, while also spending visiting years everywhere from Rome to London to China.)
This book mainly serves as a quick tour through mid-20th century intellectual history, with a focus but not an exclusive one, on economics. Phelps allowed his mind to range free, and if those excursions into other fields did not take him as far as his early microfoundations work, that's an almost insuperably high bar to pass.
The problem for the book is these core contributions take up only a few dozen pages, and much of the rest of it is taken up with writing his underused textbook Political Economy, his book "Structural Slumps" in the 1990s on problems with European labor markets, and, to my mind, his less interesting work on altruism, the dignity of work, and creativity, which seem more like vague gestures at theories than something concrete like his early work. The book does show his wide range though. Beyond working closely with Guillermo Calvo, Robert Mundell, John Taylor, Jeffrey Sachs, and others at Columbia University for most of his career, he was close with philosophers Thomas Nagel and John Rawls, and was a fanatical devotee of public performances from opera to dance. (He also spent his graduate and postgraduate years at Yale with James Tobin, who is shown as spiteful of anyone who challenged him, and spent years with almost any economist who mattered at RAND, Stanford, and the University of Pennsylvania, while also spending visiting years everywhere from Rome to London to China.)
This book mainly serves as a quick tour through mid-20th century intellectual history, with a focus but not an exclusive one, on economics. Phelps allowed his mind to range free, and if those excursions into other fields did not take him as far as his early microfoundations work, that's an almost insuperably high bar to pass.
October 25, 2023
Breezy, candid, refreshing and a tad dense in some passages (especially for someone who does not consider economics to be his/her first language), My Journeys in Economic Theory is all about bucking the trend and challenging received wisdom. the winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2006, the founding director of the Center on Capitalism and Society and McVickar Professor Emeritus of Political Economy at Columbia University, Edmund Phelps has and continues to have a storied career in his chosen profession. An accomplished trumpet player, Phelps has been associated in various capacities with the RAND Corporation, the Cowles Foundation at Yale (where he got his PhD in 1959), Penn and Columbia University.
Phelps is famous for his forays into the complex field of ‘imperfect information’. In a work Microeconomic Foundations of Employment and Inflation Theory, Phelps asserted that that workers, customers, and corporations must make many decisions sans full or contemporaneous information. This lacuna is offset by forming expectations to fill in for the missing information.
In a famous departure from the much vaunted and touted Schumpeterian theory of creative destruction, Phelps, postulated that economic progress and scientific innovation is not always an exogenous event in so far as that such ideas spring from outside a country before being imported into it. The enthusiasm and aspirations of people within, non-material rewards of work: being engaged in projects, the delight of succeeding at something and the experience of flourishing are critical factors that spur innovation. This facet found detailed expression in Phelps’s book Flourishing.
My Journeys in Economic Theory also regales the readers about the spirited and invigorating deliberations and debated which Phelps has had over the course of his professional career with some absolute colossal figures spanning myriad discipline such as Paul Samuelson, John Rawls, James Tobin etc. The book also contains some heartwarming reminiscences about Phelps’s love towards music and the arts.
My Journeys in Economic Theory – a recollection of candour, cause, and consequence.
Phelps is famous for his forays into the complex field of ‘imperfect information’. In a work Microeconomic Foundations of Employment and Inflation Theory, Phelps asserted that that workers, customers, and corporations must make many decisions sans full or contemporaneous information. This lacuna is offset by forming expectations to fill in for the missing information.
In a famous departure from the much vaunted and touted Schumpeterian theory of creative destruction, Phelps, postulated that economic progress and scientific innovation is not always an exogenous event in so far as that such ideas spring from outside a country before being imported into it. The enthusiasm and aspirations of people within, non-material rewards of work: being engaged in projects, the delight of succeeding at something and the experience of flourishing are critical factors that spur innovation. This facet found detailed expression in Phelps’s book Flourishing.
My Journeys in Economic Theory also regales the readers about the spirited and invigorating deliberations and debated which Phelps has had over the course of his professional career with some absolute colossal figures spanning myriad discipline such as Paul Samuelson, John Rawls, James Tobin etc. The book also contains some heartwarming reminiscences about Phelps’s love towards music and the arts.
My Journeys in Economic Theory – a recollection of candour, cause, and consequence.
December 24, 2023
In the beginning, I wasn't really getting into the groove of the book, but now I see how this book is basically a narrative version of his bibliography. It's kind of a brag, as it lacks any discussions of real challenges or 'counter-arguments,' but it's still an interesting read. More than anything, I am intrigued by the idea of dynamism. The notion that economic growth might not have as much to do with productivity gain from scientific innovation is intriguing. His focus on modernist values as precursors to economic growth, and also the idea that the work that is the most fulfilling and rewarding can also be the most important one, is also very thought-provoking. His understanding of humans as essentially creative beings who enjoy problem-solving seems correct to me. I am interested in reading his other work to get a better understanding of his ideas.
January 3, 2024
A wonderful journey through the life, times and work of the 2006 Nobel Laureate in Economics, Edmund Phelps. In this autobiographical work, the author leads us through his work in unemployment theory, national savings theory, the application of Rawlsian economic justice and his final task of adding to the body of growth theory with his concept of indigenous innovation. 😊😊
August 14, 2024
Excelente relato sobre el desarrollo profesional de un gigante de la ciencia económica. Realmente inspirador para todos aquellos que amamos esta disciplina.
December 22, 2023
Very interesting intelectual journey
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews