Background

BASMANN, Robert Leon was born in 1926 in Davenport, Iowa, United States of America.

Education

Bachelor of Science(Science), Master of Science, Doctor of Philosophy Iowa State University, 1950, 1953, 1955.

Career

Visiting Assistant Professor, Northwestern University, 1956-1957. Economics, Research Specialist, General Electric Company, 1957-1961. Association Professor of Economics, University Chicago, 1961-1963.

Visiting Professor Economics,University Minnesota, 1963. Professor of Economics, Purdue University, 1963-1969. J. Fishsmith Professor of Economics, Brigham Young University, 1974.

Adjunct Professor, University New Mexico, 1976. Senior Research Fellow, University Texas, Austin, Texas, Professor of Economics, Texas A & M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America, since 1976. Co-Editor, Advances in Econometrica HAT.

Achievements

• Fulbright Scholar, University Oslo, Norway, 1955-1956. Fellow, Econometric Society., 1966. Western Economic Journal Best Article Award, 1973.

Views

Early graduate study interest was in the statistical estimation of cost and revenue functions for multiproduct firms in monopolistic competition caused by the susceptibility of commodities to product differentiation. Early work centred on the framework of relations among shifts of average revenue functions due to variations of the parameters of direct utility functions caused by systematic and stochastic changes in the consumers’ environments and in particular the confounding effect of those parameter changes on statistical estimates of cross-elasticities of demand for monopolistic competitors’ products. This effort evolved into pioneering econometric estimation and testing methods for simultaneous economic equation systems and the development of exact distribution theory for econometric statistical estimators and test statistics for dynamical as well as nondynamical models.

Current work in econometric methodology concentrates on the development of a practicable standard of policy model validation adapted to rules of evidence and concepts used in the ‘finding of fact’ in hearings held by regulatory commissions, in the judicial review of commission remedies, and in civil litigation. Present work on econometric methods is an investigation of some nonparametric cost-of-living indexes and their practical application where tastes have changed between the base period and the current period.