A Review of Alan Bollard's a Few Hare's to Chase: The Economic Life and Times of Bill Phillips
The Center for the History of Political Economy Working Paper Series, Working paper no. 2017-04
11 Pages Posted: 3 Feb 2017
Date Written: January 23, 2017
Abstract
A.W.H. Phillips is little known to the economics profession today, except at the creator of the Phillips curve. Bollard’s engaging biography tells the story of a provincial New Zealander and practical engineer, who emerges as a hero in World War II, and plots a spectacular rise from 3rd class sociology degree to Tooke Professor of Economics at the LSE in just eight years. Bollard’s biograph is a welcome corrective – both in demonstrating that Phillips’ most important contributions to economics lay in the realms of macroeconomic dynamics and time-series econometrics and in showing how those aspects of his work must be appreciated to place the more famous Phillips curve into perspective.
Keywords: A.W.H. Phillips, Phillips curve, time-series, Phillips machine, Moniac, L.S.E.
JEL Classification: B31, B22, C22, E12, E31, E32
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation