On 11/13/2011 12:24 PM, James Forder wrote:
> they did not stop using the *word*, but that is not really the point


Since it seems to have been missed,
let me be clearer about my point.

Doug claimed on this list that
"the profession rejected it" ("it" being the Phillips curve).

I cannot understand that as a true claim.
As evidence I pointed to
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=phillips+curve

There we find substantial contemporary work, both theoretical
and empirical, much of it related to the original Phillips curve
(i.e., Phillips' empirical relationship).

Phillips (1958) of course did recognize the role of expectations.
As did Samuelson and Solow (1960).

The only thing that "the profession" rejected, as far as I can
see, is the idea (present neither in Phillips nor in Samuelson
and Solow) that we might permanently lower the unemployment
rate if we were willing to permanently accept a bit more inflation.
But although Lucas (1976) was correct to point out that some policy
models implied that trade-off, I do not accept that "the profession"
ever bought into that idea.  I would be interested to see article
citations suggesting any kind of professional consensus around
such an idea. So if this is the "rejection" Doug had in mind,
it seems a "rejection" of something that was never actually accepted.
Which is why I asked for a definition of 'rejection'.

Of course, my underlying point was that the Phillips curve is alive and well,
both theoretically and empirically.  Here is a recent retrospective:
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=12007

Cheers,
Alan Isaac