It is interesting that the Swedes would give him the prize for saying the exactly the
things that the Swedes actually want to do--be less productive, not work, take life at an
easy pace, and consequently have a high quality of life. Phelps should also learn about
Scandinavian "design" activities as an innovative activity, which unmotivated
people seem to generate.
cheers, anthony
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Anthony P. D'Costa, Professor
Comparative International Development
University of Washington
1900 Commerce Street
Tacoma, WA 98402, USA
Phone: (253) 692-4462
Fax : (253) 692-5718
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On Mon, 9 Oct 2006, ravi wrote:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aDcBT326MMgQ&refer=us
Columbia University's Edmund S. Phelps won the Nobel Prize in
economic sciences for his theories on the interplay between inflation
expectations and unemployment and future price increases.
Phelps, 73, will receive $1.37 million, the Royal Swedish Academy of
Sciences, which selects the winners, said in Stockholm today. The
prize, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in
Memory of Alfred Nobel, has been given out since 1969 by Sweden's
central bank. Phelps is the first solo winner of the prize since
1999.
``Phelps challenged the earlier view on the relationship between
inflation and unemployment,'' the Royal Academy said today. ``He
recognized that inflation does not only depend on unemployment but
also on the expectations of firms and employees about price and wage
increases.''
Joseph Stiglitz, a fellow professor at Columbia in New York who won
the prize in 2001, called Phelps's theories ``the most important work
of macroeconomics of this generation.''
Phelps's work ``changed our understanding of the relationship between
inflation and unemployment,'' Stiglitz said in an interview. ``His
work was among the earliest to understand that at the foundation of
macroeconomic behavior are a variety of imperfections in labor,
capital and product markets.''
Phelps developed the theory on unemployment and inflation
expectations, known as the ``expectations-augmented Phillips Curve,''
in the late 1960s. He has also written frequently on the notion that
``dynamism'' -- the creation and development of new ideas -- was the
key to fostering growth over the long run.
Theories on Innovation
He pursued that question for several years, seeking to find out why
innovation is so strong in the United States and so weak in many
developing countries, parts of the Far East and Europe. He told the
New York Sun in 2004 that Europe's lack of dynamism accounts for
``everything we read in the paper -- low employment, low labor
participation, relatively low productivity, and, I think, an
unenthusiastic attitude toward work and business.''
<...>
I thought France has higher productivity per hour worked than the USA,
the rest of Europe, or even Japan?
--ravi
