Edmund Phelps

McVickar Professor Emeritus of Political Economy, Columbia University

Professor Edmund Phelps is the winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Economics.

He is McVickar Professor Emeritus of Political Economy at Columbia University.

From its founding in 2001 until its closing in 2024, Professor Phelps was Director of the Columbia University Center on Capitalism & Society.

He has written books on public debt, inflation, unemployment theory, slumps, rewarding work, indigenous innovation, the good life and dynamism. He also has written texts on economic justice, political economy and schools of macroeconomic thought.

He has described his work as a lifelong project to put “people as we know them” into economic theory.

Born: 1933, Chicago.

Education: Ph.D. Economics, Yale University (1959) · B.A., Amherst College (1955)
Topics: Economics

In the Encyclopedia1

Interview · Aug 5, 2025Edmund Phelps On Innovation, Prosperity, & The Good Life

Selected publications8

2023“A Persisting Injustice in America’s Economy,” Capitalism & Society 17, iss. 1 (June 23, 2023).
2022“Tensions and Demands in Society, Economic Justice and Progressivism, and Yet Another Way Forward,” Capitalism & Society 16, iss. 1 (June 17, 2022).
2022“Public Debt: My Dissent from Keynesian Theories” Journal of Government and Economics 5 (Spring, 2022).
2021“Economic Dynamism and the Global Economy,” Asia Times White Paper (February 10, 2021): 1-26. (Chinese translation is available here.)
2019“Macro Perspectives: Bigger Problems than Corporate Governance,” with Bruce Greenwald and Joshua Mitts, Journal of Applied Corporate Finance 31, no. 3 (Summer 2019).
2018“A Vital People: A Necessity for a Good Economy,” Acta Oeconomica 69, S1 (January, 2019): 241-248. (Adapted from Honorary Causa Ceremony Speech, Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli, Rome, Italy, January 18, 2018.)
2018“Misused Theories Behind Trump’s Economic Policies,” Capitalism and Society 13, no. 2 (December 2018).
2018“Values, Institutions and the Rise of Eastern Europe,” with Gylfi Zoega, Economics of Transition Vol. 27, no. 1 (November 2018): 247–265.

Positions & affiliations4

Columbia University (1971- 2021)
University of Pennsylvania (1966-71)
Yale & Cowles Foundation (1960-66)
RAND (1959-60)

Credentials & fellowships1

Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2006)

Honours & awards41

Named among China’s 40 most influential foreign experts by the State Administration of Foreign Experts, Beijing, April 14, 2018.
Distinguished Professor Award, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy, June 26, 2018.
Academician of Honor, The Royal European Academy of Doctors, Barcelona, Spain, May 19, 2017.
Lifetime Contribution Award of International Federation of Finance Museums, Beijing, China, October 31, 2015.
Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal, Yale University, Connecticut, October 14, 2014.
China Friendship Award, Beijing, China, September 30, 2014.
Catedra Phelps, Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires, Argentina, Inaugurated May 20, 2008.
President’s Medal, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland, October 15, 2012.
Mendeleev Medal for Achievement in the Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia, October 9, 2012.
Louise Blouin Award for Creative Leadership, New York, September 19, 2011.
Named Honorary Citizen of Fuzhou, awarded the Key to the City of Fuzhou, June 9, 2001.
Premio Pico della Mirandola, with Mario Draghi and, posthumously, Luciano Pavarotti, Mirandola, Italy, July 4, 2008.
Global Economy Prize, Institut für Weltwirtschaft, Kiel, Germany, June 22, 2008.
Huesped Ilustre de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Legislatura de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina, May 22, 2008.
Chevalier of the National Order of the Légion d’Honneur, Paris, France, Decree of February 26, 2008, ceremony June 29, 2009.
Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden, December 10, 2006.
Kenan Enterprise Award, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1996.
Doctorate honoris causa, Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli, Rome, Italy, January 18, 2018.
Doctorate honoris causa, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium, May 5, 2010.
Doctorate honoris causa, La Mantanza, Buenos Aires, Argentina, May 23, 2008.
Doctorate honoris causa, University of Buenos Aires School of Law, Buenos Aires, Argentina, May 2007.
Doctorate honoris causa, Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, Paris, France, July 2006.
Doctorate honoris causa, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland, October 2004.
Doctorate honoris causa, University of Paris-Dauphine, Paris, France, July 2004.
Doctorate honoris causa, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal, October 2003.
Doctorate honoris causa, University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany, June 2001.
Doctorate honoris causa, University ‘Tor Vergata,’ Rome, Italy, June 2001.
Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, Amherst College, Massachusetts, 1985.
Senior Fellow, Italian Academy for Advanced Studies, Columbia University, New York, January 13, 2009.
Visiting Research Fellow, L’Observatoire Française des Conjonctures Économique, Paris, France, 2000-2013.
Distinguished Fellow, American Economic Assn., Tennessee, 2000.
Fellow, New York Academy of Sciences, New York, elected 1996.
Visiting Scholar, Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 1993-94.
Visiting Scholar, Research Department, International Monetary Fund, Washington DC, 1988.
Visiting Scholar, Fiscal Affairs Department, International Monetary Fund, Washington DC, 1985.
Visiting Scholar, Banca d’Italia, Rome, Italy, 1985.
Fellow, Guggenheim Foundation, New York, 1978.
Fellow, Center for the Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, California, 1969-70.
Fellow, Econometric Society, New York, elected 1966.
Faculty Research Fellowship, Social Science Research Council, New York, 1965-66.
Sterling Fellowship, Yale University, Connecticut, 1957-58.