Schools brief | Hidden figures

Why does low unemployment no longer lift inflation?

The Phillips curve, the logic of which guides central banks today, has become oddly flat

EVERY NIGHT at about 10pm the lights of the prisoner-of-war camp in Indonesia would mysteriously dim, to the puzzlement of the Japanese guards. They failed to spot the makeshift immersion heaters, used to brew cups of tea for the inmates, that had been cobbled together by a prisoner from New Zealand, William Phillips. These secret contraptions were just one example of his resourcefulness.

This article appeared in the Schools brief section of the print edition under the headline “A flattened curve”

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