Joseph StiglitzEdmund Phelps ’55, known to all as Ned, left Amherst long before I arrived, but as I finished my Ph.D. studies at MIT, I soon came to know him, first through his written work, then personally: He was a rising star in the orbit of economics, set for a lifetime of pathbreaking contributions to the field, and eventually recognized by the well-deserved award of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 2006. Our Amherst bond (we shared two of Amherst’s great economics teachers, Arnold Collery and Jim Nelson), our overlapping intellectual interests, our shared values, and our more than a quarter century working together at Columbia made us not just the best of colleagues but the best of friends.
The Nobel citation for “his analysis of intertemporal tradeoffs in macroeconomic policy” doesn’t do justice to his scientific contributions. Ned’s lifelong project was understanding what made our capitalist system work—and how to make it work better. In his earlier years, he focused on introducing imperfect information, with its associated market frictions, and imperfect knowledge, with its consequent complications, into macroeconomics. In later years, he shifted to understanding the determinants of the economy’s dynamism. In 2023, he published a wonderful memoir, My Journeys in Economic Theory.
His pathbreaking ideas naturally attracted collaborators, students, and a host of followers. His collaborators spanned the world—and, not surprisingly, were not just great scholars but lively personalities. Ned spent much time with them, especially in France, Italy, and Iceland.
Ned was a cultured Amherst man in many ways. His dinner parties included friends from around the world and always began with a vibrant exchange of ideas. He liked to end with convivial singing (often with a pianist). I remember fondly our evenings gathered around the piano at Ned and his wife’s home in New York. One of the most memorable conferences we went to was some four decades ago; Ned and I separately tried to provide a clearer articulation of the relationship between the arts and the economy in a special session at the Spoleto music festival in Italy, giving us the chance to say that we had “performed” at that famous event.
Ned was a dedicated teacher and kept close relationships with his former students. On one occasion, I was the beneficiary of this. We were both presenting papers at a meeting of the Econometric Society in Seoul.One of his former students had become head of a major Korean conglomerate, and he invited us out to an intimate dinner for four, where we were joined by Ken Arrow, winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize for Economics in 1972 and one of the two or three greatest economists of the 20th century, who shared Ned’s love of life and love of music. I should have expected that the evening would end with karaoke, and though I like music, I have no musical talent. In a room with only four people, there’s little room for hiding. Ned rescued me, as we sang together “O Sole Mio.”
Ned’s commitment to social justice and a fairer society permeated his research. Even the titles of his papers reflect his ethics: “The Golden Rule of Accumulation: A Fable for Growthmen,” a very influential 1961 paper; “The Statistical Theory of Racism and Sexism” from 1972; and “Taxation of Wage Income for Economic Justice” from 1973. The titles of his books show similar concerns, for instance, Rewarding Work: How to Restore Participation and Self-Support to Free Enterprise (1997) and Mass Flourishing: How Grassroots Innovation Created Jobs, Challenge, and Change (2013).
But he went beyond that. He founded—and, for a quarter century, managed—Columbia’s prestigious Center on Capitalism and Society. At one event, titled “Women in an Inclusive Economy,” he brought together leading women social scientists, including Lisa D. Cook (later appointed to the Federal Reserve) and Carmen Reinhart (later appointed chief economist of the World Bank).
No piece on Ned would be complete without mentioning Viviana, the wonderful, dynamic, lively Argentine life partner he married 52 years ago. They were inseparable. My lifelong friendship with Ned was equally a lifelong friendship with Viviana. She threw many great parties and organized many important conferences, but the most memorable days we spent together were perhaps those in Stockholm in 2006—when Ned was awarded the Nobel Prize.