Robert J. Gordon
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Robert James Gordon is an American
economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, 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 ...
. He is the Stanley G. Harris Professor of the Social Sciences at
Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...
. Gordon is one of the world’s leading experts on inflation, unemployment, and long-term economic growth. His recent work asking whether U.S. economic growth is “almost over” has been widely cited, and in 2016 he was named as one of Bloomberg’s top 50 most influential people in the world.


Education

Gordon graduated
magna cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some So ...
with a
B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...
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 higher le ...
in 1962. He then attended
Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
as a
Marshall Scholar The Marshall Scholarship is a postgraduate scholarship for "intellectually distinguished young Americans ndtheir country's future leaders" to study at any university in the United Kingdom. It is widely considered one of the most prestigious sc ...
and received his B.A. in 1964. He received his
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 a ...
from
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 ...
in 1967 with a dissertation titled ''Problems in the Measurement of Real Investment in the U.S. Private Economy.''


Career and contributions

From 1995 to 1997, he served on the
Boskin Commission The Boskin Commission, formally called the "Advisory Commission to Study the Consumer Price Index", was appointed by the United States Senate in 1995 to study possible bias in the computation of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which is used to meas ...
to assess the accuracy of the
United States Consumer Price Index The United States Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a set of consumer price indices calculated by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). To be precise, the BLS routinely computes many different CPIs that are used for different purposes. E ...
(CPI), having written the definitive criticism of CPI
inflation In economics, inflation is an increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation corresponds to a reductio ...
overstatement in 1990. He was also a member of the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the
NBER 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 ...
, which determines when recessions start and end, for more than three decades. Robert J. Gordon's popular text ''Macroeconomics'' was the first to incorporate the
rational expectations In economics, "rational expectations" are model-consistent expectations, in that agents inside the model A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16 ...
hypothesis into the analysis of the
Phillips curve The Phillips curve is an economic model, named after William Phillips hypothesizing a correlation between reduction in unemployment and increased rates of wage rises within an economy. While Phillips himself did not state a linked relationship ...
. Soon all subsequent macro textbooks were expounding the "Expectations Augmented Phillips Curve." In addition, Gordon has written for economic journals, outlining the relation of the productivity growth of modern-day inventions to the great inventions of the late 19th century. He focuses on the impact of computers in the post-1995 economy on the durable manufacturing sector. Furthermore, he emphasises the marginal productivity of computing technology affects standard of living in a much more contained fashion than the earlier great American inventions. Contrary to conventional wisdom, he downplays the role of computer technology in the economic growth of the latter 20th century in accounting for business cycle and trends. This concept may help explain the
productivity paradox The productivity paradox, also referred to as the Solow paradox, could refer either to the slowdown in productivity growth in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s despite rapid development in the field of information technology (IT) over the sa ...
– why economic productivity growth since 1970 has been significantly lower than in the preceding century, when a different set of technological and medical advancements drove a much higher rate of economic productivity growth. His 2016 book ''The Rise and Fall of American Growth'' was published by the Princeton University Press. The book discusses the immense economic growth that occurred in the century following the
American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
as well as why such growth cannot be repeated.Paperback. (n.d.). Retrieved December 07, 2020, from https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691175805/the-rise-and-fall-of-american-growth


Family

Gordon is a member of a family of economists. Both his parents
Robert Aaron Robert Aaron (born Robert Arron Vineberg; November 13, 1955) is a Canadian jazz musician. According to John Leland of the New York Times "Mr. Aaron played flute, saxophone, clarinet and piano, then taught himself guitar, trumpet, bassoon, Fren ...
and
Margaret Margaret is a female first name, derived via French () and Latin () from grc, μαργαρίτης () meaning "pearl". The Greek is borrowed from Persian. Margaret has been an English name since the 11th century, and remained popular througho ...
earned distinction independently, each contributing to economic knowledge with a view to real practical benefit for society, as did his brother
David David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...
, himself more of a radical. For example, his father is the namesake of the "Gordon Report" which proposed reforms for the computation of the unemployment rate by the
US Department of Labor The United States Department of Labor (DOL) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It is responsible for the administration of federal laws governing occupational safety and health, wage and hour standards, unemploym ...
Bureau of Labor Statistics. He currently resides in
Evanston, Illinois Evanston ( ) is a city, suburb of Chicago. Located in Cook County, Illinois, United States, it is situated on the North Shore along Lake Michigan. Evanston is north of Downtown Chicago, bordered by Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, Wil ...
with his wife Julie.


Selected works

*''The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil War.'' Princeton University Press. 2016. . * * * * *


References


External links


Northwestern University: Robert J. Gordon


at RePEc * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gordon, Robert J. 1940 births Living people 21st-century American economists 20th-century American economists Fellows of the Econometric Society Harvard University alumni MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences alumni New Keynesian economists Northwestern University faculty Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Fellows of the American Economic Association Journal of Political Economy editors Fellows of the American Physical Society