Julius Shiskin Award

Nominations are invited for the annual Julius Shiskin Memorial Award for Economic Statistics. The Award is given in recognition of unusually original and important contributions in the development of economic statistics or in the use of statistics in interpreting the economy. Contributions are recognized for statistical research, development of statistical tools, application of information technology techniques, use of economic statistical programs, management of statistical programs, or developing public understanding of measurement issues. The Award was established in 1980 by the Washington Statistical Society (WSS) and is now co-sponsored by the WSS, the National Association for Business Economics, and the Business and Economics Statistics Section of the American Statistical Association.

Nominating Procedure

Nominations for the 2024 award are now being accepted. A nomination form and guidelines in PDF format are available to download:

The completed nomination package should be submitted in either Word or PDF formats to the Shiskin Award committee via email to shiskinaward@gmail.com.

The 2024 Shiskin Award Committee will select and notify the awardee, after which the awardee will be presented with an honorarium plus additional recognition from the sponsors.

Nominations must be received by April 19, 2024.

Dennis Fixler Receives 2023 Shiskin Award

Dennis Fixler, Chief Economist at the Bureau of Economic Analysis

Dennis Fixler, Chief Economist at the Bureau of Economic Analysis, is recognized for his innovative contributions to the conceptual framework and practical methodology for the measurement of financial intermediation services in the national accounts and the producer price index and of insurance services in the national accounts. The award recognizes unusually original and important contributions to the development of economic statistics or to their use in interpreting the economy.

Dr. Fixler began his career in Federal statistics as a research economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, where he served as chief of the Division of Price and Index Number Research. While at BLS he drew on the theory of the user-cost of money to develop concepts and techniques for measuring the prices and output of financial intermediation services, which enabled BLS to expand the coverage of services in the producer price index.

Dr. Fixler has occupied the positions of Chief Statistician or Chief Economist at the Bureau of Economic Analysis since 2001. After arriving at BEA, he led the implementation of new measures of financial intermediation services that incorporated insights from his research in the national accounts and developed and led the implementation of an improved approach to measuring the output of property-casualty insurers that can be relied on to produce accurate estimates even at times of major disasters. The methods for estimating the output of property-casualty developed as part of implementing this approach have been adopted internationally.

Dr. Fixler also led the development of inequality indicators that show how personal income from the national accounts is distributed across households, and help to reveal whether the benefits of economic growth are widely shared.

The award recognizes unusually original and important contributions to the development of economic statistics or to their use in interpreting the economy.

Dr. Fixler becomes the 53rd recipient of the Award. The award is sponsored by the Business and Statistics Section of the American Statistical Association, the National Association for Business Economics, and the Washington Statistical Society.

For more information, access the final press release (PDF)

Who was Julius Shiskin?

Because the program was initiated many years ago, it is little wonder that statisticians and economists often ask, "Who was Julius Shiskin?"

At the time of his death in 1978, "Julie" was the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and earlier served as the Chief Statistician at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the Chief Economic Statistician and Assistant Director of the Census Bureau. Throughout his career, he was known as an innovator. At Census he was instrumental in developing an electronic computer method for seasonal adjustment. In 1961, he published Signals of Recession and Recovery, which laid the groundwork for the calculation of monthly economic indicators, and he developed the monthly Census report Business Conditions Digest to disseminate them to the public. In 1969, he was appointed Chief Statistician at the Office of Management and Budget where he developed the policies and procedures that govern the release of key economic indicators (Statistical Policy Directive Number 3), and originated a Social Indicators report. In 1973, he was selected to head BLS where he was instrumental in preserving the integrity and independence of the BLS labor force data and directed the most comprehensive revision in the history of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which included a new CPI for all urban consumers.

Previous Recipients of the Julius Shiskin Award for Economics

2022 - Robert Feenstra, Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Davis, for his conduct of fundamental research on price index measurement in the presence of product turnover, his pioneering work in advocating for the use of scanner data for improved economics measurement, and his major contributions to our understanding of the evolution of living standards worldwide through the creation and dissemination of the next generation of the Penn World Tables. and Charles Hulten, Professor Emeritus at the University of Maryland, College Park, for his insights into the measurement of capital and productivity, including measurement of economic depreciation, development of a methodology for aggregating industry-level productivity, and measurement of investment in intangible capital, as well as his leadership role in chairing the Committee on Research on Income and Wealth (part of the National Bureau of Economic Research -- NBER) for three decades. Press Release (PDF)

2021 - Marshall Reinsdorf, for his conduct of fundamental research on sources of bias in the consumer price index (CPI) that has influenced standards for price index measures internationally and for improving the accuracy and conceptual basis for the measurement of banking services and pensions in the U.S. national accounts, and Ron Jarmin, for his leadership role at the U.S. Bureau of the Census in overseeing the 2020 Decennial Census and the central role he has played in building important new data products from administrative data and developing a compelling vision for the future of economic measurement within the Federal statistical system. Press release (PDF)

2020 - Ernst R. Berndt, Louis E. Seley Professor in Applied Economics, Emeritus, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for conducting original and influential economic research on the measurement of multifactor productivity and quality-adjusted price change and for his leadership of key groups both within and with linkages to the U.S. economic statistics community. Press release (PDF)

2019 - Award not made

2018 - Dr. Barry Bosworth for conducting research using key federal government statistical programs to study topics such as capital formation, saving, and productivity growth, and for advising the statistical agencies to improve these programs, and Professor Danny Pfeffermann for collaborating with statistical agencies around the world to improve several major programs such as time series small area estimation, estimation of mean square error of seasonally adjusted and trend estimators, and modeling of complex survey data, accounting for informative sampling and nonresponse. Press release (PDF)

2017 - Katherine Wallman, formerly U.S. Chief Statistician at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), for strengthening the independence of U.S. statistical agencies; expanding confidentiality protection; improving the quality and usability of official statistics; increasing collaboration among the statistical agencies; and improving the reliability and comparability of official statistics throughout the world. Press release (PDF)

2016 - John M. Abowd, Edmund Ezra Day Professor at Cornell University and currently Associate Director at the U. S. Census Bureau, for designing and implementing disclosure avoidance techniques that enable federal statistical agencies to greatly expand the availability of their data while preserving respondents’ confidentiality and for his leadership at Cornell providing access to these data over the Internet. He is also recognized for developing econometric and statistical techniques to conduct labor market analysis. Press release (PDF)

2015 - Brent Moulton, former Associate Director for National Economic Accounts of the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), for his leadership in implementing major innovations into the U.S. national accounts, international standards for national accounts, and expanded integration of U.S. statistical programs. He is also recognized for his work at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in developing innovations that improved the reliability of the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Press release (PDF)

2014 - Julia Ingrid Lane, Senior Managing Economist and Institute Fellow at the American Institutes for Research, for her contributions to the development of a new Census Bureau program that has significantly advanced research on employment dynamics.

2013 - John C. Haltiwanger, Distinguished University Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland, and Maurine Haver, President and founder of Haver Analytics Inc., , for initiatives to educate users and producers of key federal economic statistics.

2012 - William D. Nordhaus, Sterling Professor of Economics at Yale University,, for his contributions to the measurement of environmental-economic accounts and economic welfare and his active participation with the U.S. statistical system.

2011 - Thomas L. Mesenbourg Jr., the Deputy Director of the U.S. Census Bureau,, for his contributions to developing and advancing economic statistics programs that meet the needs of a rapidly changing economy.

2010 - Dale W. Jorgenson, the Samuel W. Morris University Professor at Harvard University, for his contributions to the measurement of productivity, innovation, capital, human capital, poverty, and for his leadership in the integration of the U.S. National Accounts.

2009 - Helen Stone Tice, Senior Research Associate at the Center for Civil Society Studies at the Johns Hopkins University, for innovative research in developing improved measures of the activities on nonprofit institutions throughout the world and for leadership in providing users with comprehensive documentation of the methodologies used for the U.S. economic accounts.

2008 - William R. Bell, a Senior Mathematical Statistician at the U.S. Census Bureau, for innovative statistical research that led to improved economic statistics through important contributions to the theory and practice of seasonal adjustment, small area estimation, and time series modeling.

2008 - Robert M. Groves, formerly Director of the Survey Research Center of the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research and now Director of the Census Bureau, for innovative statistical research that led to improved economic statistics through important contributions to the theory and practice of survey methods for the conduct of sample surveys of both households and establishments.

2007 - Arthur B. Kennickell, Senior Economist and Head of the Microeconomic Surveys Unit at the Federal Reserve Board, for his leadership of the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances and his achievements as an international expert on the design and implementation of household economic surveys.

2006 - J. Steven (Steve) Landefeld, Director of the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) of the U.S. Department of Commerce, for his leadership in strengthening the BEA economic accounts, enhancing the international reputation of BEA, and outstanding staff development.

2005 - W. Erwin Diewert, Professor of Economics at the University of British Columbia, for path-breaking economic theoretical innovations, notably in index number theory, adapted to improve national economic statistics around the world

2004 - Agustín Maravall, Bank of Spain, for outstanding leadership and contributions to methods, software, training, and consultation for model-based seasonal adjustment and its acceptance by national statistical offices and central banks.

2003 - Carol A. Corrado, Federal Reserve Board, for outstanding stewardship of industrial production and capacity measurement resulting in notable statistical improvements, for leadership in measuring productivity and information-technology output and prices, and for significant contributions to macroeconomic analysis using disaggregated data.

2003 - Susan E. Offutt, Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, for exceptional leadership in establishing the primacy of the Economic Research Service as the Nation's leading source of economic information and policy analysis on food, farm, natural resource, and rural development issues.

2002 - Katharine G. Abraham, Bureau of Labor Statistics, for her many methodological improvements in U.S. price and employment statistics—improvements demanded by the increasingly complex roles those statistics play in business and government affairs.

2001 - George C. Tiao, University of Chicago, for his research and leadership contributions to the methodological foundations of the first model-based approach to seasonal adjustment, an approach that has been adopted by several national statistical offices and central banks.

2000 - Edwin R. Dean, Bureau of Labor Statistics, for his important contributions to the improvement and understanding of productivity measures, his leadership in international comparisons of labor statistics, and his expertise and innovation that has expanded the Bureau of Labor Statistics international technical cooperation program.

1999 - Robert P. Parker, Bureau of Economic Analysis, for important contributions to aid in the management and interpretation of the economy, for exceptionally sound and innovative research in economic statistics, and for decades of work in improving the National Income and Product Accounts in the United States and other countries.

1998 - Eva Jacobs, Bureau of Labor Statistics, for her management of the Consumer Expenditure Survey Program, her work on the use of the Consumer Expenditure Survey data to analyze and interpret the economy, and her responsiveness to customer needs.

1998 - Joseph L. Gastwirth, George Washington University, for his seminal work that clarified the statistical procedures for the Lorenz curve and related measures of income inequality and for his continuing contributions to statistical methodology needed for economic and labor analysis.

1997 - Jack E. Triplett, Bureau of Economic Analysis, for broad contributions to the field of economic measurement, including the development and introduction of hedonic price index measurement techniques and superlative price and quantity indices in the National Income and Product Accounts and, most recently, the development and implementation of the North American Industry Classification System.

1996 - David F. Findley, the U.S. Census Bureau, for outstanding scientific leadership in improving seasonal adjustment methodology for the economic times series at the Census Bureau, the Federal Government, and throughout the world.

1995 - Fritz Scheuren, Internal Revenue Service, Statistics of Income, for breaking new ground in the construction of micro economic files, as well as the statistical uses of administrative data for economic research.

1994 - Joel Popkin, Joel Popkin and Company, for his contributions to the field of economic statistics, especially in the development of price indexes and other gauges of inflationary pressures.

1994 - Richard D. Allen, National Agricultural Statistics Service, for his contributions to the application of statistics to agricultural economics and to improving the quality, integrity, and timeliness of agricultural statistics.

1993 - Barbara A. Bailar, American Statistical Association, for her contributions to modernizing the Census Bureau's statistical programs, especially her work in undercount and non-sampling errors in the Decennial Census.

1992 - Allan H. Young, Bureau of Economic Analysis, for leadership in forging and refining statistical tools that contribute substantially to the ability to analyze the United States' economy and for imaginative management of a major statistical agency through critical times.

1991 - Carol S. Carson, Bureau of Economic Analysis, for her leadership in developing and refining the economic statistical base of the U.S. and for her contributions to the development of the revised U.N. System of National Accounts.

1991 - Stephen P. Taylor, Federal Reserve Board, for his outstanding leadership in developing and maintaining the U.S. Flow of Funds Accounts and using them to interpret the behavior of financial markets.

1990 - Jerome A. Mark, Bureau of Labor Statistics, for his outstanding achievements in the development and publications of measures of multi-factor productivity.

1989 - Frank deLeeuw, Bureau of Economic Analysis, for his wide range of contributions to economic statistics that were characterized by the efficient use of statistical techniques and a practical analytical focus.

1988 - Charles Waite, Bureau of Economic Analysis and U. S. Census Bureau, for his contributions to the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the U. S. Census Bureau,

1988 - Roger Herriot, U.S. Census Bureau, for his work in improving income statistics in the United States.

1987 - Irving Kravis, University of Pennsylvania, for his work in comparative studies for national income and prices.

1986 - Janet Norwood, Bureau of Labor Statistics, for her direction of the statistical program at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

1985 - David A. Pierce, Federal Reserve Board, for his introduction and use of modern statistical techniques in the data collection and modeling program of the Federal Reserve Board.

1984 - Geoffrey Moore, Bureau of Labor Statistics and Columbia University, for his research in measurement and analysis of business cycles.

1983 - Beatrice Vaccara, Treasury and Bureau of Industrial Analysis for her major contributions to economic statistics including the development and application of input/output modeling and improvements to the system of business cycle indicators and for her leadership and direction of practical, policy oriented economic analysis.

1982 - Edward Denison, Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Brookings Institute, for his innovative and significant contributions to economics in general and particularly in the use of economic statistics.

1981 - James Bonnen, Michigan State University, for his service to the Statistical Community as Executive Director of the Presidential Reorganization Project for the Federal Statistical System and for his report Federal Statistical System Project: Issues and Opinions.

1980 - Estella Dagum, Statistics Canada, for her outstanding achievement in economic statistics, particularly for widely recognized contributions in time series analysis and for extending Julius Shiskin's pioneering work in seasonal adjustment by combining the X-11 seasonal adjustment program with the Box-Jenkins ARIMA models and especially the development of the X-11-ARIMA method.