Data Resources Inc or DRI was co-founded in 1969 by Donald Marron and

Otto Eckstein Otto Eckstein (August 1, 1927 – March 22, 1984) was a German-American economist. He was a key developer and proponent of the theory of core inflation , which proposed that in determining accurate metrics of long run inflation, the transitory pri ...

. Marron is best known as the former CEO of PaineWebber and founder of

Lightyear Capital Lightyear Capital is a private equity firm focused on leveraged buyout and growth capital investments in financial services companies. The firm, which is based in New York City, was founded in 2002 with the backing of UBS AG by Donald Marron. M ...

. Eckstein was a

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

economics professor, economic consultant to

Lyndon Baines Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...

and member of the

Council of Economic Advisors The Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) is a United States agency within the Executive Office of the President established in 1946, which advises the President of the United States on economic policy. The CEA provides much of the empirical resea ...

; he is best known for the development of the theory of

core inflation Core inflation represents the long run trend in the price level. In measuring long run inflation, transitory price changes should be excluded. One way of accomplishing this is by excluding items frequently subject to volatile prices, like foo ...

. DRI became the largest non-governmental distributor of economic data in the world. The company also built the largest macroeconometric model of its era.

Allen Sinai Allen Sinai is working as the chief global economist, strategist and president at Decision Economics, Inc. He won the Top Forecaster-Wall Street Journal Survey in 2006, as well as the USA Today Survey Top Forecaster in 2003 and 2005. Sinai has wor ...

was a leading architect. Richard Hokenson did much of the maintenance work. DRI was a major customer of Burroughs Computer. During the 1970s era of rapid expansion, DRI used the Burroughs 6700 and 7700 mainframes. DRI also developed innovative software, including the PRIMA and AID database languages; EPL Econometric Programming Language; MODSIM for solving models; and MODEL for solving econometric models in particular. Later the functionality of all these programs was merged into the EPS Econometric Programming System by the chief architect of all this software, Robert P. Lacey. Other programmers in this effort included John Ahlstrom, Greg George, and Joe Polak. The DRI Review was published monthly and summarized what the models said for the economic outlook. This information was presented in outlook conferences. DRI also held educational seminars.

General corporate timeline

* 1979: Eckstein and Marron sold DRI to

McGraw-Hill McGraw Hill is an American educational publishing company and one of the "big three" educational publishers that publishes educational content, software, and services for pre-K through postgraduate education. The company also publishes referenc ...

for over $100 million Joseph Kasputys was named president in 1981. * 1984: After Eckstein's death, DRI was slow to adopt new technology. DRI was wed to mainframe computers when the industry was moving this kind of analytic work to personal computers. * 1987:

Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates, Inc (WEFA Inc) was an economics forecasting and consulting organization founded by Nobel Prize winner Lawrence Klein. WEFA Inc was a spinoff of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, wher ...

(WEFA) merged with Chase Econometrics, a competitor to DRI and WEFA. * 2001: DRI merged with WEFA to form

Global Insight Global Insight is an economics forecasting organization, serving over 3,800 clients in industry, finance and government, with revenues of over $95 million (in 2006) and employing more than 600 staff in 23 offices in 13 countries.IHS Inc. IHS Markit Ltd was an information services provider that completed a merger with S&P Global in 2022. Headquartered in London, it was formed in 2016 with the merger of IHS Inc. and Markit Ltd. History IHS Information Handling Services (IHS) "was ...

, thus inheriting 50 years of experience and more than 200 full-time economists, country risk analysts, and consultants.

External links

McGraw-Hill company website

Global Insight company website

References

{{Authority control Defunct companies of the United States Financial data vendors Defunct financial data vendors Research and analysis firms Defunct research and analysis firms Defunct macroeconomics consulting firms