After receiving his B.A. at Amherst in 1955, Phelps went to Yale University for graduate studies. There, his professors were some of the greatest economists, such as Nobel prize winners James Tobin and Thomas Schelling, and he studied with Arthur Okun. William Fellner and Henry Wallich were very important in his study courses. Phelps received his Ph.D. from Yale in 1959. The work for his Ph.D. was based on an idea by Tobin, that peoples need in an emergency has more effect than sudden price changes.