Knowledge Information and Expectations in Modern Macroeconomics: In Honor of Edmund S. Phelps

About this book

Macroeconomics would not be what it is today without Edmund Phelps. This book assembles the fields leading figures to highlight the continuing influence of his ideas from the past four decades. Addressing the most important current debates in macroeconomic theory it focuses on the rates at which new technologies arise and information about markets is dispersed information imperfections and the heterogeneity of beliefs as determinants of an economys performance. The contributions which represent a breadth of contemporary theoretical approaches cover topics including the real effects of monetary disturbances difficulties in expectations formation structural factors in unemployment and sources of technical progress. Based on an October 2001 conference honoring Phelps this incomparable volume provides the most comprehensive and authoritative account in years of the present state of macroeconomics while also pointing to its future. The fifteen chapters are by the editors and by Daron Acemoglu Jess Benhabib Guillermo A. Calvo Oya Celasun Michael D. Goldberg Bruce Greenwald James J. Heckman Bart Hobijn Peter Howitt Hehui Jin Charles I. Jones Michael Kumhof Mordecai Kurz David Laibson Lars Ljungqvist N. Gregory Mankiw Dale T. Mortensen Maurizio Motolese Stephen Nickell Luca Nunziata Wolfgang Ochel Christopher A. Pissarides Glenda Quintini Ricardo Reis Andrea Repetto Thomas J. Sargent Jeremy Tobacman and Gianluca Violante. Commenting are Olivier J. Blanchard Jean-Paul Fitoussi Mark Gertler Robert E. Hall Robert E. Lucas Jr. David H. Papell Robert A. Pollak Robert M. Solow Nancy L. Stokey and Lars E. O. Svensson. Also included are reflections by Phelps a preface by Paul A. Samuelson and the editors introduction.