2026 Economic Outlook Lunchtime Speaker: Prof. Dan Sichel
We are excited to announce Prof. Dan Sichel, Stanford Calderwood Professor of Economics Emeritus at Wellesley College, as the featured speaker for this year’s Economic Outlook Luncheon (added fee) at the 2026 Joint Statistical Meetings in Boston, MA.
Prof. Sichel’s research focuses on macroeconomics, economic growth, technology, and economic measurement. His work has explored the relationship between information technology and economic growth, as well as broader issues related to U.S. economic performance and policy analysis.
Before joining Wellesley College in 2012, Prof. Sichel spent much of his career in Washington, D.C., serving in senior economic policy roles at the Federal Reserve Board, the U.S. Treasury Department, and the Brookings Institution. At the Federal Reserve, he was part of the senior management team providing analytic support to the Chair of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Open Market Committee, helping guide economic forecasting and analysis of the U.S. economy.
Prof. Sichel is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and serves on the Advisory Committee of the Bureau of Economic Analysis. He earned his Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton University and holds both a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Michigan.
The title of his talk is listed below, followed by an abstract with more information.
Title: The Price of Nails Since 1695: A Window into Economic Change
Abstract: In some cases, we can learn about the economy by looking back in time rather than at contemporaneous developments. Along those lines, this talk focuses on the price of nails since 1695 and the proximate source of changes in those prices. Why nails? They are a basic manufactured product whose form and quality have changed relatively little over the last three centuries, yet the process for producing them has changed dramatically. Accordingly, nails provide a useful prism through which to examine a wide range of economic and technological developments that touch on multiple areas of both micro- and macroeconomics as well as highlighting key issues in economic measurement. Several conclusions emerge. First, from the late 1700s to the mid 20th century real nail prices fell by a factor of about 10, relative to overall consumer prices. These declines had important effects on downstream industries, most notably construction. Second, while declining materials prices contribute to reductions in nail prices, the largest proximate source of the decline during this period was multifactor productivity growth in nail manufacturing, highlighting the role of the specialization of labor and reorganization of production processes. Third, the share of nails in GDP dropped back from 0.4 percent of GDP in 1810—comparable to today’s share of household purchases of personal computers—to a de minimis share more recently; accordingly, nails played a bigger role in American life in that earlier period. Finally, real nail prices have increased since the mid 20th century, reflecting in part an upturn in materials prices and a shift toward specialty nails in the wake of import competition, though the introduction of nail guns partly offset these increases for the price of installed nails. Press Release (PDF).
*Tickets can be purchased through the JSM registration site
Date: Tuesday, Aug 4
Time: 12:30 PM - 1:50 PM
Location: 8502
Program link: Access here
Paul Schreyer Receives 2026 Shiskin Award
Dr. Paul Schreyer, Director of Research and Enterprise at the Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE) at King's College London, has made extraordinary contributions to the fields of productivity measurement, national accounts, and economic statistics. His career spans international public service, academic research, and the development of statistical standards used by governments and institutions worldwide. He received his Doctorate in Mathematical Economics with distinction from the University of Innsbruck, Austria in 1986.
At the OECD, where he served for over three decades in progressively senior roles — culminating as Chief Statistician and Director of the Statistics and Data Directorate (2020–2024) — Dr. Schreyer led and shaped the international standards that underpin how countries measure economic output, capital, and productivity. He is the author of two definitive OECD Manuals, Measuring Productivity (2001) and Measuring Capital (2009), which remain the methodological foundations for national statistical agencies across the globe. His research advanced the price measurement of information and communication technology, the statistical treatment of free digital services, natural capital in productivity accounts, and the measurement of health and education output. As Rapporteur for the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, and through co-authored work with leading economists, Dr. Schreyer consistently bridged rigorous statistical methodology with the broader interpretation of economic and social well-being.
For more information, access the Shiskin Award Page or the Shiskin Award press release.
B&E Student Paper Award Winners for 2026
The Business and Economic Statistics Section announced the winners of the 2026 American Statistical Association Student Paper Awards, given by the section.
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- Peiyao Cai, University of Michigan, “Estimation and Inference for the Joint Autoregressive Quantile-Expected Shortfall Model”
- Xuanyu Chen, University of Michigan, “Noisy Matrix Completion under Informative Missingness”
- Pangpang Liu, Yale University, “Uncertainty Quantification for Large Language Model Reward Learning under Heterogeneous Human Feedback”
- Xiao Liu, Renmin University, “Estimating Treatment and Spillover Effects with the Ego-Cluster Experimental Design”
The award-winning students will present their papers at the Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) in a Topic-Contributed session. They will also receive a cash award.
For more details, including a complete list of the members of the 2026 B&E Student Paper Awards Committee, access the student awards announcement (PDF file).
Congratulations to the award winners for their submissions.
2025 Zellner Award Winner Announced
The Business and Economic Statistics Section of the American Statistical Association is proud to announce the recipient of the 2025 Arnold Zellner Thesis Award: Sid Kankanala for the Yale University thesis "Essays in Nonparametric Econometrics: Endogeneity and Latent Heterogeneity" An honorable mention was awarded to both Filip Obradović for the Northwestern University thesis "Essays in Identification and Inference," as well as to Christopher Douglas Walker for the Harvard University thesis "Essays in Bayesian Econometrics"
The award included a $1500 prize.
For more information on the Zellner Thesis Award, including submission information for the Zellner Thesis Award, access the Zellner Thesis Award Page.
B&E Section Election Results Announced
The B&E Section announces the results for the 2024 ASA Election for section officers:
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- Chair-Elect 2026 Cindy Yu, Iowa State University
- Program Chair-Elect 2025 Rebecca Killick, Lancaster University
- Secretary/Treasurer 2025–2026 Mariana Saenz-Ayala, Georgia Southern University
Many thanks to all the candidates and congratulations to the winners.