published the proceedings in a 1983 book. However, as rational expectations were becoming the standard in macroeconomics, the book was initially received with hostility and was largely ignored. The financial crisis of 2007–2008, along with the failure of rational expectations models to predict it, led to a renewed interest in the work. Research in 1980s In 1982, he was appointed the McVickar Professor of Political Economy at Columbia. During the early 1980s, he wrote an introductory textbook synthesizing contemporary economics knowledge. The book, Political Economy, was published in 1985 but had limited classroom adoption. In the 1980s, Phelps increased collaboration with European universities and institutions, including Banca d'Italia (where he spent most of his 1985–86 sabbatical and Observatoire français des conjectures économiques (OFCE). He became interested in the puzzle of the persistent high unemployment in Europe despite no pause in inflation and published on the subject with Jean-Paul Fitoussi (the director of OFCE). Further study led Phelps to believe that it is not a transitory phenomenon but the effect of changes in equilibrium unemployment. During the following years, Phelps tried to build a theory to determine endogenously the natural rate of unemployment. He published partial research results in a 1994 book, Structural Slumps: The Modern Equilibrium Theory of Employment, Interest and Assets. Phelps also collaborated closely with Luigi Paganetto at the University of Rome Tor Vergata and, between 1988 and 1998, as co-organizers of the Villa Mondragone International Seminar. Research in 1990s In 1990 Phelps took part in a mission from the new EBRD to Moscow, where he and Kenneth Arrow designed a proposal for the reform of the Soviet Union. After the EBRD was established, he became a member of its Economic Advisory Board, where he stayed until 1993. From his work at EBRD and collaboration with his former student, Roman Frydman, Phelps developed a strong interest in Eastern Europe's transition economies. Over the late 1980s and the early 1990s, Phelps created a new non-monetary theory of employment in which business asset values drive the natural rate. The theory, first fully set out in his book Structural Slumps (1994), explains Europe's slump without disinflation in the 1980s: the elevation of the world real rate of interest, declining opportunities for continuing technological catching up and the mushrooming social wealth granted by Europe's emerging welfare state play the main causal roles. Two sequel papers in 2000 and 2001 on the theory