Macroeconomics would not be what it is today without Edmund Phelps. This book assembles the field's 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...

This paper focuses on the output costs of disinflation. A model of inflation with both forward and backward elements seems to characterize reality. Such an inflation model is estimated using data for industrial countries, and the output costs of a disinflation path are calculated, first...

This essay asks how high inflation arises and why it is costly to eliminate. Specifically, the paper discusses the roles of price rigidity and credibility problems in explaining the costs of disinflation; the puzzle of persistent inflation triggered by onetime macroeconomic shocks; and the case...