James Forder
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Explaining the fame of Friedman's Presidential Address
April 2019|Journal article|Cambridge Journal of Economics -
Why did Milton Friedman win the Nobel Prize?
January 2019|Journal articleMilton Friedman, Nobel Prize, Stabilisation Policy, Phillips Curve -
Why is labour market adjustment so slow in Friedman's presidential address?
October 2018|Journal article|Review of Keynesian EconomicsIt is noted that Friedman (1968) suggested the adjustment to a change in the rate of inflation would take decades and that this is rather a long time. Various suggestions as to why Friedman may have said this are considered. It is argued that he may have had in mind not a more or less rational change in expectations, but something more like a change in the habits of thought. It is noted that if this is correct, his view on the point is not generally accepted.B2, E4, E5, Friedman, expectations, Phillips curve -
A response to David Laidler's review of Macroeconomics and the Phillips curve myth
February 2018|Journal article|https://thets.org.uk/book-reviews/a-response-to-david-laidlers-review-of-macroeconomics-and-the-phillips-curve-myth/
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Department of Economics Discussion Paper Series
What was the message of Friedman
December 2016|Working paper|Department of Economics Discussion Paper SeriesAbstract It is widely accepted that the importance of Friedman’s Presidential Address to the American Economic Association lies in its criticism of policy based on the Phillips curve. It is argued that a reading of the text does not support such a view, and this and other considerations suggest that any such aim was far from Friedman’s mind in 1968. His objective was the quite different one of making a case for policy ‘rules’ rather than discretion.Milton Friedman, rules and discretion, expectations, Phillips curve -
Department of Economics Discussion Paper Series
Harry Johnson on the Phillips Curve
September 2016|Working paper|Department of Economics Discussion Paper SeriesIt is noted that Harry G. Johnson was widely admired for his broad knowledge of economics, and particularly for the excellence and synthesizing quality of much of his writing. His discussions of the “Phillips curve” and related matters are considered. It is found that they are brief, inaccurate, and inconsistent. It is clear that, despite his reputation, they should not be treated as authoritative. It is further suggested that rather than supposing that Johnson’s knowledge and capabilities have been grossly exaggerated, it may be better to conclude that the Phillips curve was not nearly so important in the literature of the 1960s and 1970s as has been supposed.Phillips curve, Harry Johnson, expectations, Phillips curve, Phillips curve myth -
Department of Economics Discussion Paper Series
Nine views of the Phillips curve: Eight authentic and one inauthentic
September 2014|Working paper|Department of Economics Discussion Paper SeriesThere is a widely believed but entirely mythical story to the effect that the discovery of 'the Phillips curve' was, in the 1960s and perhaps later, an inspiration to inflationist policy. The point that this is a myth is argued in Forder, Macroeconomics and the Phillips curve myth, OUP 2014. One aspect of the explanation of how that myth came to be widely believed is considered in this paper. It is noted that the expression 'Phillips curve' was applied in a number of quite distinct and inconsistent ways, and as a result there was, by about 1980, an enormous confusion as to what that label meant. This confusion, as well as the multiplicity of possible meanings, it is suggested, made the acceptance of the myth much easier, and is therefore part, although only part, of the story of its acceptance.Phillips curve, expectations, Phillips curve myth -
Department of Economics Discussion Paper Series
A Neglected Inconsistency in Milton Friedman's AEA Presidential Address
September 2014|Working paper|Department of Economics Discussion Paper SeriesFriedman (1968) - his famous Presidential Address to the American Economic Association - contains an elementary error right at the heart of what is usually supposed to be the paper's crucial argument. That is the argument to the effect that during an inflation, changing expectations shift in Phillips curve. It is suggested that the fact of this mistake, and of its having gone all-but unnoticed are points of historical interest. Further reflections, drawing on the arguments of Forder (2014) Macroeconomics and the Phillips curve myth, are suggested.Phillips, Friedman, Expectations -
Department of Economics Discussion Paper Series
Economists on Samuelson and Solow on the Phillips curve
December 2010|Working paper|Department of Economics Discussion Paper SeriesSamuelson and Solow published a widely read paper in the May issue of the American Economic Review of 1960. It discussed the causes of inflation, the Phillips curve, and related matters. Discussion of their paper frequently says that it presented the Phillips curve as a stable, exploitable relation, and hence played an important role in the development of inflationary policy. This is hardly so. Sometimes authors notice this, but they nevertheless say it was misread as advocating inflationary policy and hence played the same role in policy development. Close attention to what was said about it in the relevant period – the 1960s – reveals that it was not then seen as advocating inflationary policy at all. This raises a strange puzzle as to why it was that, rather suddenly, it came to be incorrectly said that Samuelson and Solow had been interpreted as being inflationist when they neither were that, nor had been interpreted in that way.
