A. W. Phillips

A. W. Phillips
Name	A. W. Phillips
Birth date	1914-11-18
Birth place	Te Rehunga, New Zealand
Death date	1975-03-04
Death place	Auckland, New Zealand
Nationality	New Zealand
Alma mater	University of Auckland, London School of Economics
Known for	Phillips curve
Occupation	Economist

A. W. Phillips was a New Zealand-born economist and statistician best known for identifying an empirical inverse relationship between wage inflation and unemployment that became known as the Phillips curve. His work linked quantitative analysis from time series and macroeconomics to policy debates involving Monetary policy, Fiscal policy, and the Keynesian economics consensus in the mid-20th century. Phillips's research influenced discussions at institutions such as the Bank of England, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, the International Monetary Fund, and academic departments across Cambridge and London.

Early life and education

Phillips was born in Te Rehunga, New Zealand, and attended the University of Auckland where he studied engineering and architecture before moving into economics and statistics under influences from scholars connected to Edmund Hillary's era and contemporaries at the University of Otago. He won a scholarship to the London School of Economics, where he interacted with figures from Cambridge School networks and attended lectures influenced by thinkers linked to John Maynard Keynes, Alfred Marshall, and contemporaries from the Cowles Commission tradition.

Academic career

Phillips's academic career included appointments and collaborations across University of London institutions, the London School of Economics, and engagements with the Bank of England staff and visiting positions that connected him to researchers at the University of Cambridge, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, Yale University, Columbia University, University of Chicago, University of California, Berkeley, and University of Oxford. His methodological exchanges reached scholars associated with Milton Friedman, Paul Samuelson, James Tobin, Kenneth Arrow, Robert Solow, Amartya Sen, Friedrich Hayek, John Hicks, Nicholas Kaldor, Hyman Minsky, Gunnar Myrdal, Wassily Leontief, Simon Kuznets, Jan Tinbergen, Jacob Marschak, Irving Fisher, Ludwig von Mises, Franco Modigliani, Clive Granger, Ronald Coase, Tjalling Koopmans, Trygve Haavelmo, James Meade, Ronald McKinnon, and Robert Mundell.

The Phillips curve and economic contributions

Phillips introduced an empirical relation between wage inflation and unemployment using decades of data from United Kingdom series, motivating policy debates involving Arthur Burns, Alan Greenspan, Paul Volcker, Gordon Brown, Margaret Thatcher, and central bankers at the Federal Reserve System and the European Central Bank. The Phillips curve was central to critiques and refinements by proponents of the natural rate hypothesis such as Edmund Phelps and monetarists like Milton Friedman, and later incorporated into New Keynesian economics frameworks developed by N. Gregory Mankiw, Stanley Fischer, Olivier Blanchard, Michael Woodford, Ben Bernanke, Mervyn King, Kenneth Rogoff, Raghuram Rajan, Joseph Stiglitz, and Paul Krugman. Debates over the Phillips curve intersected with events including the 1970s energy crisis, stagflation, and policy episodes tied to the Bretton Woods system and the transition to inflation targeting regimes used by the Bank of England and central banks inspired by Leslie R. Samuelson-era macroeconomists.

Publications and methodologies

Phillips published influential articles in outlets frequented by scholars from Econometrica, The Economic Journal, Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economic Studies, and forums used by Royal Economic Society members. His 1958 empirical paper used techniques related to time series analysis, spectral analysis, and early econometrics practices akin to work by Clive Granger, Robert Engle, Trygve Haavelmo, Jan Tinbergen, Tjalling Koopmans, and analysts from the Cowles Commission. Methodological influences and peers included Ronald Fisher, Jerzy Neyman, Egon Pearson, George Box, David Cox, C. R. Rao, John Nelder, Peter Whittle, David Hendry, Christopher Sims, James Heckman, Daniel McFadden, Edward Leamer, Angus Deaton, Clive Granger, Robert F. Engle III, and Claudia Goldin.

Influence and legacy

Phillips's empirical finding became a cornerstone referenced by policy-makers and scholars tied to Keynesian economics, the Chicago School, New Classical economics, and New Keynesian economics. References to his work appear in policy deliberations at the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and in central bank research influenced by John Williams (economist), Charles Goodhart, Olivier Blanchard, Janet Yellen, Alan Blinder, Ben Bernanke, and Marvin Goodfriend. The Phillips curve stimulated theoretical advances including the expectations-augmented Phillips curve and the natural rate of unemployment literature, informing textbooks by authors like Paul Samuelson, William Nordhaus, N. Gregory Mankiw, Robert J. Barro, David Romer, and Joseph Stiglitz. Econometric refinements drawing on Phillips's approach helped shape empirical macroeconomics practiced by scholars at Centre for Economic Policy Research, National Bureau of Economic Research, Institute for Fiscal Studies, London School of Economics, and major university departments.

Personal life and honors

Phillips maintained links with New Zealand institutions and UK societies including the Royal Statistical Society, the British Academy, and the Royal Economic Society. Honors and recognition for his empirical contributions were discussed among fellows such as John Hicks, Nicholas Stern, Christopher A. Pissarides, Dame Joan Humphreys, and others in prize committees for awards like the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences and awards associated with the British Academy. Phillips died in 1975 in Auckland, leaving a legacy referenced by successive generations including Alan A. Taylor, Thomas Sargent, Christopher Sims, Edward Prescott, Finn Kydland, Robert Lucas Jr., and Michael Woodford.

Category:New Zealand economists Category:20th-century economists