PARIS -- The winner of this year's Nobel Prize in economics, Edmund Phelps, is a giant in the field. His contributions have been, and remain, so important that they have altered traditional ways of thinking.
According to the social science citations index, he ranks well among the most important economists since Adam Smith. Economists working on the macro-economy, its micro-foundations, exogenous and endogenous growth theory, the formation of expectations and problems of information and discrimination all refer to Phelps.
After a brilliant secondary education, Phelps entered Amherst College in Massachusetts without a specific idea about what discipline to embrace or which career to follow. He was passionate about philosophy but, at the insistence of his father, took classes in economics.