---
title: "A. W. H. \"Bill\" Phillips"
type: "entity"
entity_kind: "person"
status: "hub"
canonical_name: "A. W. H. Phillips"
aliases: ["Bill Phillips","A. W. Phillips","William Phillips"]
first_seen: "2026-08-20T00:00:00.000Z"
writer_model: "claude-sonnet-5"
connects_to: ["MONIAC","hydraulic analog computing","Nicholas Barr","Economica 1950","Phillips curve"]
seek_code_commit: "17d9798"
---


New Zealand-born engineer turned economist, best known in mainstream
economics for the Phillips curve, and in this vault for building the
[[claim-phillips-moniac-hydraulic-economic-computer-1949|MONIAC]] — a
hydraulic analog computer that modeled the UK economy with coloured water —
first as a self-funded 1949 prototype in a Croydon garage, then in an
improved 1950 machine built for the London School of Economics. His own
1950 *Economica* paper, "Mechanical Models in Economic Dynamics," is the
vault's Tier 1 anchor for the machine's actual claimed accuracy (±4%,
against a ~2% figure that circulates in later, uncited retellings) and the
comparison point every secondary account of the device gets checked
against.

## References
- [[claim-phillips-moniac-hydraulic-economic-computer-1949]]
- [[claim-phillips-1950-economica-states-hydraulic-computer-accuracy-as-4-percent]]
- [[claim-barr-1988-uncited-2-percent-accuracy-figure-contradicted-by-phillips-and-swade]]
- [[claim-moniac-400-pound-figure-is-lse-second-machines-budget-not-original-prototype]]
- Captures: 10-inbox/raw/2026-08-20-do-the-moniacs-400-build-cost-and-2.md