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Subject:
From:
Robert Leeson <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Societies for the History of Economics <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sat, 12 Apr 2014 20:57:21 -0700
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text/plain
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The Phillips curve (1954) was a theoretical relationship between the rate of change of prices and the level of production. Inflationary expectations play a crucial role in Phillips' model - it made the system unstable. 

Whilst attempting to empirically locate his curve, Phillips had difficulty with price data and so took-up Henry Phelps Brown's offer of the use of wage data, which he then combined with unemployment data. 

Friedman's (1953) clear statement about contemporary notions of a Phillips curve trade-off was written while Phillips was an undergraduate and therefore does not use the term "Phillips curve" (which was not used until the 1959 AEA meetings).      

RL

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alan G Isaac" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Saturday, 12 April, 2014 10:13:58 PM
Subject: Re: [SHOE] Critiques of Keynesian Economics and the Stimulus

On 4/12/2014 12:34 AM, Robert Leeson wrote:
> In the 'Case for Flexible Exchange Rates', Friedman (1953,
> 200) argued that removing the fixed exchange rate
> constraint allowed each country to pick a point on
> a ‘Phillips curve’ “according to its own lights … flexible
> exchange rates are a means of combining interdependence
> among countries through trade with a maximum of internal
> monetary independence”.

Just to be clear, as I do not have the essay at hand,
it does not speak of Phillips and certainly not
of a Phillips curve, right? Phillips's Economica paper,
published  in 1958, addressed wage behavior not
price behavior.  Friedman's essay does
acknowledge wage rigidity as a possible source of
unemployment, but that is quite different.

Thank you,
Alan Isaac

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