Katharine G. Abraham (born August 28, 1954) is an American economist who is the director of the Maryland Center for Economics and Policy, and a professor of
survey methodology
Survey methodology is "the study of survey methods".
As a field of applied statistics concentrating on human-research surveys, survey methodology studies the sampling of individual units from a population and associated techniques of survey da ...
and
economics
Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.
Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyzes ...
at the
University of Maryland
The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...
. She was commissioner of the
Bureau of Labor Statistics from 1993–2001 and a member of the
Council of Economic Advisers from 2011–2013. She was elected a member of the
National Academy of Sciences in 2022.
Education
Abraham holds a bachelor of science degree in economics from
Iowa State University
Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the ...
(1976) and a Ph.D. in economics from
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 high ...
(1982). She was an assistant professor at
MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...
's
Sloan School of Management
The MIT Sloan School of Management (MIT Sloan or Sloan) is the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
MIT Sloan offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree programs, ...
and a research associate at the
Brookings Institution
The Brookings Institution, often stylized as simply Brookings, is an American research group founded in 1916. Located on Think Tank Row in Washington, D.C., the organization conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in e ...
before joining the faculty at the University of Maryland in 1988.
Career
During her time as commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Abraham laid the groundwork for the
American Time Use Survey The American Time Use Survey (ATUS), sponsored by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and conducted by the United States Census Bureau (USCB), is a time-use survey which provides measures of the amounts of time people spend on various activities, i ...
, the first U.S. government survey of time use, and established the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee. During extensive public debate on the
Consumer Price Index in the 1990s, Abraham testified repeatedly before Congress on the shortcomings of existing methodology and the necessity of making revisions based on objective research. She expanded coverage of the prices of services in the
Producer Price Index
A producer price index (PPI) is a price index that measures the average changes in prices received by domestic producers for their output.
Its importance is being undermined by the steady decline in manufactured goods as a share of spending.
...
; instituted improvements in the Current Employment Statistics, including the substitution of a probability sample for the quota sample; accelerated delivery of employment and wage statistics; and took steps toward expanding coverage of wages and salaries in the
Occupational Employment Statistics The Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics) (OEWS) survey is a semi-annual survey of approximately 200,000 non-farm business establishments conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), headquartered in Washington, DC with six regional off ...
program.
Abraham's research has included studies of the effects of job duration on wages; the effects of advertising on job vacancies, wages and the business cycle; and comparisons among the U.S., European, and Japanese labor markets; work-sharing policies, unemployment, and job openings; the operation of internal labor markets; and the measurement of market and nonmarket economic activity.
Awards
She is a research associate of 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 ...
and the recipient of an honorary doctorate by Iowa State University. She has been awarded the Julius Shiskin Award for Economic Statistics (2002), the Roger Herriot Award for Innovation in Federal Statistics (2010), the Susan C. Eaton Scholar-Practitioner Award of the
Labor and Employment Relations Association
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the labour ...
(2013), and was named a Distinguished Fellow of the
American Economic Association in 2020. She is a fellow of the
American Statistical Association
The American Statistical Association (ASA) is the main professional organization for statisticians and related professionals in the United States. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts on November 27, 1839, and is the second oldest continuousl ...
and the Society of Labor Economists. She was elected to fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2020.
Selected bibliography
;Books
* ''Based on papers presented at a conference held at MIT in June 1987.''
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;Journal articles
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Pdf.Working papers and National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) papers.*
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Abraham, Katharine
American women economists
Economists from Iowa
Feminist economists
20th-century American economists
21st-century American economists
Bureau of Labor Statistics
United States Department of Labor officials
Obama administration personnel
Clinton administration personnel
American civil servants
MIT Sloan School of Management faculty
University of Maryland, College Park faculty
Fellows of the American Statistical Association
Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni
Labor economists
Iowa State University alumni
People from Ames, Iowa
Living people
1954 births
United States Council of Economic Advisers
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
21st-century American women
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences