William Arnold Barnett (born October 30, 1941) is an American

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this field there are ...

, whose current work is in the fields of

chaos Chaos or CHAOS may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Fictional elements * Chaos (''Kinnikuman'') * Chaos (''Sailor Moon'') * Chaos (''Sesame Park'') * Chaos (''Warhammer'') * Chaos, in ''Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy'' * Cha ...

bifurcation Bifurcation or bifurcated may refer to: Science and technology * Bifurcation theory, the study of sudden changes in dynamical systems ** Bifurcation, of an incompressible flow, modeled by squeeze mapping the fluid flow * River bifurcation, the ...

, and

nonlinear dynamics In mathematics and science, a nonlinear system is a system in which the change of the output is not proportional to the change of the input. Nonlinear problems are of interest to engineers, biologists, physicists, mathematicians, and many other ...

in socioeconomic contexts,

econometric Econometrics is the application of statistical methods to economic data in order to give empirical content to economic relationships. M. Hashem Pesaran (1987). "Econometrics," '' The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics'', v. 2, p. 8 p. 8 ...

modeling of consumption and production, and the study of the

aggregation problem An ''aggregate'' in economics is a summary measure. It replaces a vector that is composed of many real numbers by a single real number, or a scalar. Consequently there occur various problems that are inherent in the formulations that use aggregate ...

and the challenges of

measurement in economics The measures used in economics are physical measures, nominal price value measures and fixed price value measures. These measures differ from one another by the variables they measure and by the variables excluded from measurements. The measurabl ...

Education

Barnett received his B.S. degree in

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, an ...

from

M.I.T. 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 ...

, his

M.B.A. A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as account ...

from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, and his M.A. and

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

from Carnegie Mellon University.

Positions

Barnett is currently the Oswald Distinguished Professor of Macroeconomics at the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. T ...

and Director of th
Center for Financial Stability
in New York City. He is also a Fellow of th
IC² Institute
at the University of Texas at Austin and a Fellow of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise. He is the founder and President of the Society for Economic Measurement. He is also the Director of th
Institute for Nonlinear Dynamical Inference
at RUDN University in Moscow. He was previously Research Economist at the

Board of Governors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organi ...

of the

Federal Reserve The Federal Reserve System (often shortened to the Federal Reserve, or simply the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States of America. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a ...

System in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

; Stuart Centennial Professor of Economics at the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

at Austin; and Professor of Economics at

Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...

. Prior to becoming an economist, he worked from 1963 to 1969, as an engineer at

Rocketdyne Rocketdyne was an American rocket engine design and production company headquartered in Canoga Park, in the western San Fernando Valley of suburban Los Angeles, in southern California. The Rocketdyne Division was founded by North American Avia ...

division of the

Rockwell International Corporation Rockwell International was a major American manufacturing conglomerate involved in aircraft, the space industry, defense and commercial electronics, components in the automotive industry, printing presses, avionics and industrial products. R ...

on development of the F-1 and J-2 rocket engines during Apollo program.

Research

His research is in macroeconomics and

econometrics Econometrics is the application of statistical methods to economic data in order to give empirical content to economic relationships. M. Hashem Pesaran (1987). "Econometrics," '' The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics'', v. 2, p. 8 p. 8 ...

. He is Founding President of the Society for Economic Measurement, Founding Editor of the

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambridge University Pre ...

journal, Macroeconomic Dynamics and of the

Emerald Group Publishing Emerald Publishing Limited is a scholarly publisher of academic journals and books in the fields of management, business, education, library studies, health care, and engineering. History Emerald was founded in the United Kingdom in 1967 as ...

monograph series, ''International Symposia in Economic Theory and Econometrics'', and originator of the Divisia monetary aggregates and the " Barnett critique". In consumer demand and production modelling, he originated the Laurent series approach to specification design and the seminonparametric approach using the Müntz–Szász theorem. His publications on bifurcation analysis and nonlinear dynamics have shown that robustness of dynamical inferences is compromised, when policy simulations are run only at point estimates of parameters, since confidence regions about those estimates are often crossed by bifurcation boundaries. He 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 ...

, a Charter Fellow of the

Journal of Econometrics The ''Journal of Econometrics'' is a scholarly journal in econometrics. It was first published in 1973. Its current managing editors are Serena Ng and Elie Tamer, Torben Andersen and Xiaohong Chen serve as editors. The journal publishes work d ...

, a Charter Fellow of the Society for Economic Measurement, a Fellow of the World Innovation Foundation, a Fellow of the IC² Institute, and a Fellow of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise, and Honorary Professor at

Henan University Henan University () is one of the oldest public and Double First Class Universities in China. It was founded in 1912. In the beginning, its name was the Preparatory School for Further Study in Europe and America. In 1942, its name was changed to ...

in Kaifeng, China. He is ranked among the top 2% of the world's economists in RePEc. His book with Nobel Laureate,

Paul A. Samuelson Paul Anthony Samuelson (May 15, 1915 – December 13, 2009) was an American economist who was the first American to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. When awarding the prize in 1970, the Swedish Royal Academies stated that he "h ...

, ''Inside the Economist's Mind: Conversations with Eminent Economists'',

Wiley-Blackwell Wiley-Blackwell is an international scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons. It was formed by the merger of John Wiley & Sons Global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business with Blackwell Publish ...

Publishing (2007), , has been translated into seven languages. His ''MIT Press book'', ''Getting It Wrong: How Faulty Monetary Statistics Undermine the Fed, the Financial System, and the Economy'', , won the American Publishers Award for Professional and Scholarly Excellence (the

PROSE Awards The PROSE Awards (Professional and Scholarly Excellence) are presented by the Association of American Publishers’ (AAP) Professional and Scholarly Publishing (PSP) Division. Presented since 1976, the awards annually recognize distinguished prof ...

) for the best book published in economics during 2012. During January 2017, he was interviewed in depth about his life's work by Apostolos Serletis.
conference in his honor
was held at the Bank of England on May 23–24, 2017.

Honorary journal special issues

Special issues of two eminent professional journals, the ''Journal of Econometrics'' and ''Econometric Reviews'', have been published in Professor Barnett's honor with contribution by many of the world's most prominent economists. These journals are: * Special issue of the

on the topic of
Internally Consistent Modeling, Aggregation, Inference, and Policy
" coedited in honor of William A. Barnett by

James Heckman James Joseph Heckman (born April 19, 1944) is a Nobel Prize-winning American economist at the University of Chicago, where he is The Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor in Economics and the College; Professor at the Harris School of Pu ...

and Apostolos Serletis, v. 183, no. 1, November 2014, pp. 1 – 146. * Special issue of

Econometric Reviews ''Econometric Reviews'' is a scholarly econometrics Econometrics is the application of statistical methods to economic data in order to give empirical content to economic relationships. M. Hashem Pesaran (1987). "Econometrics," '' The New P ...

on the topic of
Econometrics with Theory: A Volume Honoring William A. Barnett
" coedited by

and Apostolos Serletis, v. 34, no. 1-2, 2015, pp. 1 – 254.

Publications

Selected books

* * * * *

Selected journal articles

* * * * *

References

External links

Barnett papers

Personal web site

Center for Financial Stability
* Society for Economic Measurement
Blog
{{DEFAULTSORT:Barnett, William A. 1941 births Living people Tepper School of Business alumni MIT School of Engineering alumni Haas School of Business alumni Carnegie Mellon University alumni Fellows of the American Statistical Association University of Kansas faculty 20th-century American economists 21st-century American economists Neoclassical economists Monetary economists University of Texas at Austin faculty Johns Hopkins University fellows Washington University in St. Louis faculty