A.W. “Bill” Phillips podcast

My favourite economist! This is from Economics in Ten podcast, season six, episode one. This one is a real treat. Bill Phillips has been described as the ‘Indiana Jones of Economics’ and the episode earns that billing: he built radios in a Japanese prisoner of war camp, spoke five languages, was arrested for spying, and constructed a hydraulic machine (the MONIAC) that physically modelled the flow of money through the economy using water. Oh, and he also gave us the Phillips curve, which remains central to debates about the inflation-unemployment trade-off. Pete and Gav clearly enjoy this one and it shows. A genuinely fun episode to recommend to students who think economics is dry, and very accessible: the extraordinary life story carries the episode even before you get to the economics, so it works well for all students, particularly when teaching the inflation-unemployment trade-off.  Listen here