Education
attended public schools in Helena, Montana
attended public schools in Helena, Montana
The predominant role of investment. In 2005 Jorgenson traced the American growth resurgence to its sources in individual industries in his book, Information Technology and the American Growth Resurgence, co-authored with Mun S. Ho and Kevin J. Stiroh. This book employed the framework originated by Jorgenson, Frank M. Gollop, and Barbara M. Fraumeni, but added detailed information about investments in information technology equipment and software. Jorgenson and his co-authors demonstrated that input growth, due to investments in human and non-human capital, was the source of more than 80 percent of U.S. economic growth over the past half century, while growth in total factor productivity accounted for only 20 percent. Jorgenson and Khuong Vu (2005) established similar results for the world economy.
New architecture for the national accounts. The new system is presented in their book with William Nordhaus, published in 2006. In March 2007 Jorgenson's cost of capital was recommended by the United Nations Statistical Commission for incorporation into the United Nations’ 2008 System of National Accounts. Paul Schreyer (2009) has published an OECD Manual, Measuring Capital, to serve as a guide to practitioners. The “new architecture” was endorsed by the Advisory Committee on Measuring Innovation in the 21st Century to the Secretary of Commerce in 2008. Jorgenson (2009) has presented an updated version of the “new architecture” in his Richard and Nancy Ruggles Memorial Lecture to the International Association for Research in Income and Wealth.
The World KLEMS Initiative was established at Harvard University on August 19–20, 2010. This will ultimately include industry-level production accounts, incorporating capital (K), labor (L), energy (E), materials (M) and services (S) inputs, for more than forty countries. Accounts for 25 or the 27 EU members, assembled by 18 EU-based research teams, were completed on June 30, 2008, and are presented by Marcel P. Timmer, Robert Inklaar, Mary O’Mahony, and Bart van Ark (2010). This landmark study also provides industry-level accounts for Australia, Canada, Japan, and Korea, as well as the U.S., based on the methodology of Jorgenson, Ho, and Stiroh (2005). These industry-level production accounts are now included in the official national accounts for Australia, Canada, and five European countries. The World KLEMS initiative will extend these efforts to important emerging and transition economies, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, Turkey, and Taiwan.
Welfare measurement. In 1990 Jorgenson presented econometric methods for welfare measurement in his Presidential Address to the Econometric Society. These methods have generated a new approach to cost of living measurement and new measures of the standard of living, inequality, and poverty. This has required dispensing with ordinal measures of individual welfare that are not comparable among individuals, as persuasively argued by Amartya Sen in 1977. Jorgenson and Daniel T. Slesnick have met this requirement by substituting cardinal measures of individual welfare that are fully comparable among individuals. In 1989 Arthur Lewbel showed how the household equivalence scales proposed by Jorgenson and Slesnick can be used for this purpose.
Evaluation of alternative policies. In 1993 Jorgenson and Peter J. Wilcoxen surveyed this evaluation of energy, environmental, trade, and tax policies, based on the econometric general equilibrium models Jorgenson developed with Ho and Wilcoxen. The concept of an intertemporal price system provides the unifying framework. This system balances current demands and supplies for products and factors of production. Asset prices are linked to the present values of future capital services through rational expectations equilibrium. The long-run dynamics of economic growth are captured through linkages among capital services, capital stocks, and past investments. Alternative policies are compared in terms of the impact of changes in policy on individual and social welfare. This approach was incorporated into the official guidelines for preparing economic analyses by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2000.
Optimal Replacement Policy, Amsterdam, North-Holland, 1967 (with J. J. McCall and R. Radner); Italian Edition: Politiche Ottimali di Sostituzione e Manuetezione dei Macchinari (translations Armando Brandoles
Measuring Performance in the Private Economy of the Federal Republic of Germany 1950-1973,Tubingen, J. C. B. Mohr, 1975 (with K. Conrad).
(Editor), Econometric Studies of United States Energy Policy, Amsterdam, North-Holland, 1976.
(Editor), Technology and Economic Policy, Cambridge, Ballinger, 1986 (with R. Landau).
Productivity and United States Economic Growth , Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1987 (with F. M. Gollop and B. M. Fraumeni)reprint, iUniverse.com, 1999.
(Editor), General Equilibrium Modeling and Economic Policy Analysis, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1990 (with L. Bergman and E. Zalai).
(Editor), Technology and Agricultural Policy , Washington, National Academy Press, 1990 (with C. Benbrook, K. Farrell, R. Landau, and V. Ruttan).
(Editor), Tax Reform and the Cost of Capital: An International Comparison , Washington, The Brookings Institution, 1993 (with R. Landau).
Capital Theory and Investment Behavior , Cambridge, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1996 (Investment, Vol. 1).
Measuring Social Welfare, Cambridge, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1997 (Welfare, Vol. 2).
Energy, the Environment, and Economic Growth , Cambridge, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1998 (Growth, Vol. 2).
Editor), Industry-Level Productivity and International Competitiveness Between Canada and the United States , Ottawa, Industry Canada (with Frank C. Lee), 2001.
(Editor), Measuring and Sustaining the New Economy , Washington, National Academy Press (with C. Wessner), 2002.
National Academy of Sciences (chair section 54 Economic Scis. 2000-03) , the United States
2000 - 2003
American Philosophical Society , the United States
American Statistical Association , the United States
American Academy Arts and Scis.; Economic Association (John Bates Clark medal 1971, president 2000) , the United States
Royal Swedish Academy Scis. , Sweden
Fellow American Association for the Advancement of Science
Econometric Society (president 1987)
Royal Economic Society
Conference on Research in Income and Wealth
International Association Research in Income and Wealth.