in the year 1969-1970 professor phelps worked for the center for advanced study in behavioral science at stanford university. meeting with nobel prize winners amartya sen and kenneth arrow, and reading the work of john rawls, whom he met during that year, gave professor phelps an interest to research outside of macroeconomics. in 1972 he published research he named "statistical discrimination". he also published research on economic justice, using ideas from rawls book "a theory of justice".