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In a note appearing in the August 2024 issue of History of Political Economy (HOPE), Edward Nelson argues that a passage commenting on James Forder's Macroeconomics and the Phillips Curve Myth (2014) in a 2023 HOPE article by Carlo Cristiano titled "The Early Reception of the Phillips Curve in the United Kingdom" would provide a false characterization of the economic literature and claims priority in affirming that UK policymakers did not use the Phillips curve as a menu for policy. It is shown in this reply that Nelson's reading of Cristiano's 2023 article, and more specifically of the passage commenting on Forder's 2014 book, is based on a misunderstanding. The purpose of the 2023 article was not to show that UK policymakers did not use the Phillips trade-off as a menu for policy. In that article, consensus on this point is taken for granted. It is also argued in this reply that there is no need to mention Nelson's works to affirm that UK policymakers did not use the Phillips trade-off as a policy menu and that Nelson's works are indeed very relevant, but for other reasons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

John Maynard Keynes is frequently mentioned in Money and Empire, where he stands out for his book on the Indian gold exchange standard and his highly informative and perceptive account of the crisis of 1914. Based on de Cecco's book, one may be induced to think that, before WWI, Keynes was an economist deeply involved in the public life of his country and the administration of the Empire. However, this contrasts with the young economist's image that has crystallised in the literature on Keynes. In the attempt to solve this contradiction, it is possible to show that the conventional image of the young Keynes is far from satisfactory. Moreover, even though Money and Empire is not altogether reliable in presenting Keynes's ideas, this old book by Marcello de Cecco may still have a significant contribution to give in the literature on Keynes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As shown in a 2018 article by Cristiano and Paesani, the element of Phillips's 1958 article that immediately obtained attention in the policy debate was the estimate of the unemployment rate compatible with price stability. Building on this previous work and based on the unpublished papers of the Council on Prices, Productivity, and Incomes and other published sources, the present article throws fresh light on why the curve paper failed to influence policymaking. At least two reasons may account for this. First, by the late 1950s and early 1960s, works based on inferential statistics still failed to obtain widespread attention among professional economists in the United Kingdom. Second, Phillips's 1958 article came at the beginning of a process that led to the abandonment, for some time at least, of the idea of buying price stability at the cost of increasing the unemployment rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]