Alban William Housego Phillips (1914-1975) is a British and New Zealand economist. 1914165438+10/8 was born in Trevonga, New Zealand. Engaged in mining work in Australia in his early years; 1937 went to England, 1939 graduated as an electrical engineer and worked in the London electricity bureau; He served in World War II and was captured in the Far East War. After the war, he entered the London School of Economics to study sociology and obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree from 65438 to 0949. 1952 received a doctorate in philosophy. 1950 assistant lecturer, London school of economics; 1954 associate professor; 1958 ——1967 professor of economic science and statistics; 1965 ——1966 was a visiting professor at MIT; 1967, he left England and became a professor of economics at the Institute of Social Sciences of the Australian National University. 1970 returned to New Zealand after a stroke, and 1975 died in Auckland, New Zealand.

Phillips' representative papers are: The Relationship between Unemployment Level and Rate of Change of Monetary Wages in Britain (1861-1957). Other important papers include: mechanism model in economic dynamics (1950), stability policy in closed economy (1954) and employment, inflation and growth (1962).

Phillips' main contribution to economics is that he pioneered the Phillips curve of the relationship between the change of money wage rate and unemployment level, applied the technology of optimal control and control engineering to econometric model for the first time, and made some progress in econometric estimation technology. In his famous paper "The Relationship between Unemployment Level and Rate of Change of Monetary Wage in Britain" published in 186 1- 1957, he used econometric methods, based on the theory that monetary wage is determined by labor supply and demand in traditional economics, enumerated econometric models, and explained the functional relationship between unemployment rate and rate of change of monetary wage: Y+a=bXc (. Then, according to the relevant statistical data from 186 1- 1957 in the UK, we try to use the statistical least square method. In his view, assuming that other factors such as unemployment rate remain unchanged, the change rate of nominal wage rate, that is, wage inflation rate, is a decreasing function of unemployment rate. The unemployment rate required to reduce the wage inflation rate to the normal experience level is definitely comparable, that is to say, there is a trade-off and substitution relationship between the unemployment rate and the monetary wage rate. That is, when the unemployment rate is high, the growth rate of monetary wages is low; On the contrary, when the unemployment rate is low, the growth rate of monetary wages is higher.

Phillips curve popularly reflects the fundamental requirement of Keynesianism to adjust aggregate demand, and provides a very useful policy analysis tool for Keynesianism. After World War II, a group of western economists, represented by Samuelson and Solo, used this curve named by Phillips to illustrate the relationship between unemployment rate and inflation rate, which caused great repercussions in western economic circles. Keynesians believe that there is an alternative relationship between unemployment rate and inflation, so the government can balance unemployment and inflation according to Phillips curve, which can be used as the basis for formulating policies: unemployment rate can be reduced by implementing high inflation, and inflation can also be suppressed by high unemployment, but low unemployment and low inflation cannot be chosen at the same time. In the 1960s, Keynesians attributed the main cause of inflation in capitalist countries to the fact that the growth rate of monetary wages exceeded the growth of labor productivity. Assume that the rate of price increase = the growth rate of money and wages-the growth rate of labor productivity. In this way, this curve originally proposed by Phillips has been further deepened in theory to show the changing relationship between inflation rate and unemployment rate, that is, when the unemployment rate is high, the monetary wage growth is slow and the inflation rate is low; When the unemployment rate is low, monetary wages increase rapidly and the inflation rate is high. In this way, if the government wants to reduce the unemployment rate, it must pay the price of higher inflation rate, and if it wants to curb inflation, it must endure higher unemployment rate. Monetarists represented by Friedman believe that the substitution relationship represented by Phillips curve is only a temporary phenomenon in a short period at best, and it does not exist in a long period; The school of rational expectation believes that the substitution relationship represented by Phillips curve does not exist even in the short term.

Phillips also studied the problem of dynamic stability, and discussed the reaction lag and its influence on stability policy. He distinguishes proportional, integral and differential policies according to whether the policies change according to existing mistakes, accumulated deviations or the speed of target change. He believes that the best policy depends on the lag of the economy, which consists of proportion, integral and derivative. To achieve dynamic stability, a prerequisite is to establish an econometric model. His method was adopted by later economists when analyzing the stability policy. Phillips believes that it is difficult to achieve a stable policy without establishing an appropriate econometric model. However, because the dynamic relationship of economic variables is difficult to describe and estimate accurately, his research only laid the groundwork for later economists' research, but it is still an important contribution to economics.