The Economist Who Taught Me There Is No Growth Without Risk

One day years ago, when I was a young graduate student who didn’t appear to have much promise or potential, Edmund Phelps invited me to his office to discuss the economy. Over the next few years, we would meet every few weeks, often with other prominent colleagues he had asked to join. Not only were these meetings critical to my career as an economist, but they also became the foundation of my understanding of the macroeconomy.

Phelps, who died last week at the age of 92, was among the last economists who viewed growth for what it is: necessary but not sufficient for prosperity and flourishment, as well as messy and complicated. Growth requires embracing uncertainty, tolerating failure, accepting some inequality, and losing money. As Phelps said after winning the 2006 Nobel Prize: “The best strategy is to do 100 things and hope that some of them work — and if they don’t, do another 100 things.”