Edmund Phelps, an American economist and 2006 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences laureate, died on May 16, 2026.
He was 92. Born in Evanston, Illinois, on July 26, 1933, Phelps was known early in his career for research at Yale’s Cowles Foundation in the first half of the 1960s on the sources of economic growth.
His work on the golden rule savings rate helped prompt further study of how nations balance present consumption with saving and investment for the future. Phelps was at the University of Pennsylvania from 1966 to 1971 and moved to Columbia University in 1971. He later developed the natural rate of unemployment.
Edmund Phelps, 92, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate (2006). (death announced on this date)