Background
ORCUTT, Guy Henderson was born in 1917 in Wyandotte, Michigan, United States of America.
ORCUTT, Guy Henderson was born in 1917 in Wyandotte, Michigan, United States of America.
Bachelor of Science with honors in Physics, University Michigan, 1939. Master of Arts in Economics, University Michigan, 1940. Doctor of Philosophy, University Michigan, 1944.
Teaching fellow University Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1940-1941, Rackham fellow, 1944. Laboratory assistant, statistician University Michigan Hospital, 1944. Instructor economics Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, 1944-1946.
Senior researcher department applied economics Cambridge (England) University, 1946-1948. Assistant professor to associate professor economics Harvard University, 1949-1958, director Littauer Statistical Laboratory, 1952-1956, visiting professor, 1965-1966. Brittingham professor economics University Wisconsin, Madison, 1958-1969, director Social Systems Research Institute, 1959-1962, director research, 1962-1964, chairman department, 1964-1965.
Irving Fisher visiting professor Yale University, New Haven, 1969-1970, professor economics, A. Whitney Griswold professor urban studies, from 1970, chairman Center for Studies of City and Its Environment, 1970-1973. Economist International Monetary Fund, 1949, consultant, 1951-1953. Consultant Federal Reserve Board, 1954, Office Statistical Standards, Bureau of Budget, 1961-1962.
Director poverty and inequality project Urban Institute, 1968-1975. Senior advisor International Bank for Reconstrn. and Development (World Bank), 1967-1968. Member executive committee division behavorial science, NAS-National Research Council, 1968-1970.
Board directors Social Science Research Committee, since 1975, treas, since 1976.
Contributor articles to professional journals.
Since coming into economics in 1939 with a background in physics, I have sought to improve the methods, tools and data which are used in trying to determine the consequence of alternative macroeconomic policies. During the 1940s I designed and demonstrated three electromechanical, analogue computing devices. One of these, a multiple regression analyser, was built at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass., USA and used in Monte-Carlo experiments underlying my early work on testing for significance of relationship between time series having autocorrelation properties similar to real macroeconomic time series.
This machine is described in article No 1 above. By the end of the 1940s, my research focus was entirely on the statistical estimation of relationships between macroeconomic time series, such as those being used by Tinbergen and Klein. During the early 1950s I became convinced that evidence remaining in highly aggregated time series was inadequate for the needed development and testing of macroeconometric models of national economies.
During subsequent years this led to many, somewhat successful efforts to secure and make available micro-entity cross-sectional and time series panel data. It also led, as I became aware of the impossibility of aggregating nonlinear microlevel relations into macro-level relations between macro variables, to my conception, in 1956, of microanalytic system modelling and simulation, using the large electronic digital computers which were just beginning to emerge. Much of my
effort in subsequent years has focussed on the development of microanalytic simulation techinques and concrete models designed for policy application.
Fellow American Statistical Association (vice president 1959-1961), American Economic Association (executive committee 1972-1975 ), Econometric Society (council member 1961-1962, 68-71).
Married; four children.