John Couch Haltiwanger (born December 12, 1955) is the Dudley and Louisa Dillard Professor of Economics and Distinguished University Professor of

Economics Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...

at the

University of Maryland-College Park The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the Flagship un ...

. He is best known for his work developing and studying longitudinal firm-level microdata, which formed the foundation of his influential work on the determinants of firm-level job creation, job destruction, and economic performance.

Biography

Haltiwanger received a B.S. in applied mathematics and economics from

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

in 1977 and a Ph.D. in economics from

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

in 1981.John Haltiwanger UMD Faculty Biography
John Haltiwanger's Curriculum Vitae
/ref> Prior to arriving at the University of Maryland-College Park in 1987, he held positions on the faculty at the

University of California-Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

and The Johns Hopkins University. He is also a research associate at the Center for Economic Studies at the

U.S. Bureau of the Census The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of the ...

, and served as Chief Economist of the U.S. Bureau of the Census between 1997 and 1999. In addition these positions, Haltiwanger is a senior research fellow of the Census Bureau's Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) Program, which he helped to found along with John M. Abowd and

Julia Lane Julia Ingrid Lane is an economist and economic statistician who works as a professor at New York University's Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, as well as NYU's Center for Urban Science and Progress, helping CUSP to build CUSP data facili ...

. He is a member of the Federal Economics Statistics Advisory Council and a research associate at both the

Institute for the Study of Labor The IZA - Institute of Labor Economics (german: Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit), until 2016 referred to as the Institute of the Study of Labor (IZA), is a private, independent economic research institute and academic network focused o ...

(IZA) and the

National Bureau of Economic Research The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is an American private nonprofit research organization "committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic c ...

(NBER).Maryland Population Research Center Profile of John Haltiwanger
/ref> Haltiwanger served as chief economist of the U.S. Bureau of the Census between 1997 and 1999. He was also previously a member of the Committee on National Statistics for the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

, a consultant for the

Conference Board The Conference Board, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) organization, 501(c)(3) non-profit business membership and research group organization. It counts over 1,000 public and private corporations and other organizations as members, encompassing 60 countries. ...

, and a member of the Brookings Panel on Economic Activity. He is married to Lucia Foster.

Work

Haltiwanger is known for his influential work using firm-level

longitudinal data In statistics and econometrics, panel data and longitudinal data are both multi-dimensional data involving measurements over time. Panel data is a subset of longitudinal data where observations are for the same subjects each time. Time series and ...

to explore the dynamics of job creation, job destruction, and economic performance. In his 1996 book ''Job Creation and Destruction'' (co-authored with

Steven Davis Steven Davis (born 1 January 1985) is a Northern Irish professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for Scottish Premiership club Rangers and captains the Northern Ireland national team. Davis made his full international debut in 2005 a ...

and Scott Schuh), he uses plant-level data from the

manufacturing industry Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a rang ...

to examine how businesses and workers respond to changes in their economic environments. Among the most striking findings in the book are the large and persistent gross job flows, which dwarf the net job flows that are commonly observed in employment data. ''Job Creation and Destruction'' laid the groundwork for subsequent research that not only confirmed the existence of such large gross job flows in other time periods, sectors, and countries, but also delved into the mechanisms and theories that would explain these flows. In a review published in the

Journal of Economic Literature The ''Journal of Economic Literature'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal, published by the American Economic Association, that surveys the academic literature in economics. It was established in 1963 as the ''Journal of Economic Abstracts'',

in 1997,

David Blanchflower David Graham Blanchflower, (born 2 March 1952), sometimes called Danny Blanchflower, is a British-American labour economist and academic. He is currently a tenured economics professor at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire. He is also a ...

concluded that ''Job Creation and Destruction'' "is an important piece of work. Not many books start literatures. This one is likely to. Buy it." (page 1400). In a review published in

Economica ''Economica'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal of generalist economics published on behalf of the London School of Economics by Wiley-Blackwell. Established in 1921, it is currently edited by Nava Ashraf, Oriana Bandiera, Tim Besley, Francesco ...

in 1998,

Jonathan Haskel Jonathan Haskel (born 13 August 1963) is a British economist, and professor of economics at Imperial College Business School. Haskel currently serves as board member of the UK Statistics Authority, a member of the Bank of England's Monetary Po ...

noted that ''Job Creation and Destruction'' "is a definitive documentation of job creation and destruction in the United States and has already proved to be the starting point for a rich body of work. How many other books can claim to be so influential in their field?" (page 156). ''Job Creation and Destruction'' was a Choice Outstanding Academic Title in 1996. More recently, Haltiwanger has empirically explored the basis for the conventional view that small firms are responsible for the majority of growth in the U.S. economy. His research on the subject suggests that it is young firms, not small firms per se, that create the disproportionate number of jobs. Haltiwanger has also published widely criticized articles in the

Quarterly Journal of Economics ''The Quarterly Journal of Economics'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Oxford University Press for the Harvard University Department of Economics. Its current editors-in-chief are Robert J. Barro, Lawrence F. Katz, Nathan N ...

, the

American Economic Review The ''American Economic Review'' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal published by the American Economic Association. First published in 1911, it is considered one of the most prestigious and highly distinguished journals in the field of ec ...

, the

Review of Economic Studies ''The Review of Economic Studies'' (also known as ''REStud'') is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering economics. It was established in 1933 by a group of economists based in Britain and the United States. The original editorial team ...

, the

Review of Economics and Statistics ''The'' ''Review of Economics and Statistics'' is a peer-reviewed 103-year-old general journal that focuses on applied economics, with specific relevance to the scope of quantitative economics. The ''Review'', edited at the Harvard University’s K ...

, the

, and other major economics and statistics journals.

Honors and awards

* 2014 Roger Herriot Award (with

John Abowd John Maron Abowd (born December 22, 1951) is the Associate director for research and methodology and chief scientist of the US Census Bureau, where he serves on leave from his position as the Edmund Ezra Day Professor of Economics, professor of in ...

and

) * 2013 Julius Shiskin Memorial Award * Choice Outstanding Academic Title (1996), ''Job Creation and Destruction'' (co-authored with Steven Davis and Scott Schuh) Choice Outstanding Academic Titles, Complete List
/ref> * Choice Outstanding Academic Title (2007), ''Economic Turbulence: Is A Volatile Economy Good for America?'' (co-authored with Clair Brown and

) * 2020 Global Award for Entrepreneurship Researchhttps://www.e-award.org/award-winners/2020-john-haltiwanger/

Selected works

Books

* Davis, S., J. Haltiwanger, and S. Schuh. 1996. ''Job Creation and Destruction''. Cambridge: MIT Press. * Brown, C., J. Haltiwanger, and J. Lane. 2006. ''Economic Turbulence: Is A Volatile Economy Good for America?'' Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

References

External links

John Haltiwanger's Personal Website

John Haltiwanger's National Bureau of Economic Research Website

John Haltiwanger's IZA Website

John Haltiwanger's Google Scholar Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Haltiwanger, John 1955 births Living people 21st-century American economists 20th-century American economists Labor economists University of Maryland, College Park faculty Johns Hopkins University faculty University of California, Los Angeles faculty Johns Hopkins University alumni Brown University alumni Fellows of the Econometric Society