Ernst Rudolph BERNDT

Background

BERNDT, Ernst Rudolph was born in 1946 in Crespo, Entre Rios, Argentina.

Education

Bachelor of Arts Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, Indiana, 1968. Master of Science, Doctor of Philosophy University Wisconsin, 1971, 1972.

Career

Research Economics, Executive Office United States President, Washington District of Columbia, 1971-1972. Assistant Professor of Economics, University British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, 1976-1980. Visiting Scholar, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America, 1977-1978.

Professor Applied Economics, Sloan School Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America. Research Association, National Bureau of Economie Research, New York, New York, United States of America, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America, since 1980.

Association Book Review Editor, Journal of the American Statistical Association, 1977-1981.

Editorial Board, Resources and Energy, since 1979, Energy J, since 1979. Association Editor, Journal of Business. Administration, since 1982.

Journal of Econometrics, since 1983.

Achievements

• Canada Council Sabbatical Leave Fellow, 1977-1978. Member, United States, National Academy of Sciences, United States of America Committee Nuclear and Alternative Energy Systems, 1976-1980.

Views

I think of myself as an applied econometrician with a special interest in microeconomic topics. My early research involved empirical implementation of translog production and cost functions. Subsequent theoretical research focussed on relationships among the concepts of functional separability, substitution elasticities, and consistent aggregation.

This mix of economic theory and empirical implementations then led me to examine alternative criteria for testing hypothesis in multiple equation systems, and also extended to a consideration of problems in consistently specifying vector autoregressive processes in singular equation systems In the last decade much of my empirical research has involved modelling the special relationship between energy and capital, and examining implications of the Organisation of Petroleum Export Countries energy price increases on investment, capacity output and productivity. The initial framework employed a static optimisation framework but by the late 1970s I was involved in estimation of dynamic factor demand models.

Currently my research is a mix of analyses of energy-productivity interactions, the integration of hedonic price analyses with the theory of cost and production, the measurement of consumers’ evaluations of technical design innovations in the Swedish and United States automobile markets, and an evaluation of productivity performance in the 200 United States electric power industries.

Interests

• 211 Econometric and Statistical Methods and Models. 620 Economics of Technological Change: 720 Natural Resources.