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A graphic curve depicting an empirical observation of the relationship between the level of unemployment and the rate of change of money wages and, by inference, the rate of change of prices.
It was in 1958 that an economist from New Zealand, A. W. H. Phillips (1914–75) proposed that there was a trade-off between inflation and unemployment–the lower the unemployment rate, the higher the inflation rate–governments simply need to choose the right balance between the two evils.