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Quarterly Review Vol. 23 No. 2
Title Nobel Laureate Robert E. Lucas, Jr.: Architect of Modern Macroeconomics
Author(s) V. V. Chari
Date Spring 1999

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ABSTRACT: In 1995, Robert E. Lucas, Jr., was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. This review places Lucas’ work in a historical context and evaluates the effect of this work on the economics profession. Lucas’ central contribution is that he developed and applied economic theory to answer substantive questions in macroeconomics. Economists today routinely analyze systems in which agents operate in complex probabilistic environments to understand interactions about which the great theorists of an earlier generation could only speculate. This sea change is due primarily to Lucas.

This essay is reprinted from the Journal of Economic Perspectives (Winter 1998, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 171–86) with the permission of the American Economic Association.

Remarks:
(1) Who is the most important macro economist in the last 30 years?
Definitely, it is Robert Lucas.
(2) Lucas has made significant contributions to a number of fields in economics including financial economics (1978), monetary theory (1980a, Lucas and Stokey 1987), public finance (Lucas and Stokey 1983), international economics
(1982), and, most recently, economic growth (1988).
(3) This paper focuses specially on by Lucas: his 1972 paper “Expectations and the Neutrality of Money” and his 1976 paper “Econometric Policy Evaluation:ACritique.”
(4) Link to his Nobel lecture: http://www.nobel.se/economics/laureates/1995/