UMD Economist Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences
John C. Haltiwanger Honored for Research Measuring Job Creation and Loss, Labor Productivity
By Laura Ours
Economist and Distinguished University Professor John C. Haltiwanger (below) has been named to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences along with other leading scholars, scientists, artists, business leaders and more.
Photo by Dylan Singleton
A University of Maryland researcher whose statistical and measurement methods have helped policymakers understand changes in the U.S. labor market was named a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAA&S).
John C. Haltiwanger, a Distinguished University Professor who serves as the Dudley and Louisa Dillard Professor of Economics, was among nearly 250 individuals elected this year from fields including academia, the arts, industry, public policy and research.The society dates back to 1780 with early members including Benjamin Franklin and George Washington.
“I am deeply honored to have been elected to the academy, an institution composed of truly inspiring people across the arts and sciences,” Haltiwanger said. “It is a special honor to be included amongst the group of economists that inspired much of my work, including George Akerlof, Olivier Blanchard, Peter Diamond, Zvi Griliches, Dale Mortensen and Janet Yellen. In addition, it is a great honor to be a member of this society with my distinguished University of Maryland colleague and co-author, Katharine Abraham.”
With Haltiwanger’s election, more than 75 UMD faculty are members of national academies, including 27 in the AAA&S.
Since the 1980s, he has used U.S. longitudinal firm-level data to develop new statistical measures and analyze the determinants of firm-level job creation and destruction and economic performance. He has explored their implications, tracking the contribution of business dynamism and entrepreneurship to U.S. job creation and productivity growth.
“The American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ recognition of John’s contributions to economics is richly deserved,” said economics Professor and department Chair Andrew Sweeting. “John is world-renowned for his contributions to the understanding of productivity, entrepreneurship and economic dynamism, and the accurate measurement of microeconomic and macroeconomic activity.”
Haltiwanger’s work, he added, is the foundation of a decades-long collaboration between the Department of Economics and the U.S. Census Bureau “that has benefitted tens if not hundreds of Ph.D. students, many of whom have established their own careers studying similar questions. John is also an exceptional leader within the department, and continues to help guide the department’s thinking about its own future.”
Haltiwanger, who joined UMD in 1987, said that a hallmark of his research has been collaboration.
“I have had the good fortune to work with numerous fabulous co-authors, colleagues and students, to whom I owe much,” Haltiwanger said.
Now he is working to modernize economics measurement methodology for key economic indicators.
“The U.S. federal statistical agencies continue to produce high-quality statistics tracking the economy, but much of the current methodology was developed in the mid 20th century. It is a very survey-centric approach developed before the information technology revolution,” Haltiwanger said. “In 2025, much of economic activity is tracked in a host of digital data sources and repositories. I am actively working with co-authors, students and the statistical agencies to take advantage of this era of truly big data, along with machine learning methods to harvest and integrate such data.”
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