Books by Edmund Phelps

Nobel Laureate Edmund Phelps argues that the high level of innovation in the West was not a result of scientific discoveries plus entrepreneurship. Rather, modern values-particularly the individualism and self-expression prevailing among the people-fueled the dynamism needed for widespread innovation.

Dissatisfied with explanations of the business cycle provided by Keynesian, monetarist, New Keynesian, and real business cycle schools, Phelps has developed from existing modern and classical strains a radical theory to account for long periods of unemployment that have dogged the economies of the U.S. and Western Europe since the early 1970s.

Since the 1970s a gulf has opened between the pay of low-paid workers and that of the middle class, resulting in the departure or frustration of much of the labor force. For Phelps, this is a failure of political economy whose widespread effects are undermining the free-enterprise system. He proposes a novel solution.