2009 Usery Lecture
The Andrew Young School of Policy Studies & The Usery Center at Georgia State University announce the
2009 Fifth Annual W.J. Usery Distinguished Lecture
Thursday, March 12, 2009, Lecture at 2 p.m.,
7th Floor Seminar Room, 14 Marietta St. NW
AYS students are welcome to talk informally with Professor Abraham during Coffee and Conversations at 10am in Room 507, the day of the lecture.
Katharine Abraham, University of Maryland
"What We Don't Know Could Hurt Us: Some Reflections on the Measurement of Economic Activity"
Katharine Abraham is former Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (1993-2001) and a leading researcher on the measurement and analysis of economic activity. Her research has centered on the measurement and analysis of time use in market and non-market activities. Recent work examines non-response in the time use surveys, labor market barriers for older women, college enrollment effects of a tuition assistance program, and the rewards to occupational job skills. Early in her career, Abraham coauthored classic papers on vacancies and unemployment and on how wages rise relative to productivity over a worker’s tenure, the latter work triggering an important theoretical and empirical literature exploring the factors associated with wage growth within firms.
Abraham is Professor in the Joint Program in Survey Methodology; Adjunct Professor in the Department of Economics; and Faculty Associate in the Population Research Center, all at the University of Maryland, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Prior to her years as BLS Commissioner, Abraham was on the economics faculty at MIT and the University of Maryland and a research associate at the Brookings Institution. She chairs the Committee on Economic Statistics of the American Economic Association, is a board member on the AEA’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession, and has been a member or chair on two National Research Council Committees on National Statistics.
Additional information on Katharine Abraham is available at http://www.popcenter.umd.edu/mprc-associates/kabrahamThe Lecture is open to all faculty, students and staff. Limited seating on a first-come, first-served basis.
For more information, contact Avani Raval at araval@gsu.edu.
Previous W.J. Usery Distinguished Lectures
2008 - Fourth Annual W.J. Usery Distinguished Lecture
March 24, AYSPS, David H. Autor (MIT) presented "Inequality and Specialization: The Growth of Low Skilled Service Jobs in the United States"
2007 - Third Annual W.J. Usery Distinguished Lecture
April 19, 749 AYSPS, Lisa Lynch (Tufts University) presented "Organizational Innovation and the New Economy"
2006 - Second Annual W.J. Usery Distinguished Lecture
April 27, 749 AYSPS, Alan Krueger (Princeton University) presented "Whither the Social Safety Net?"
2005 - Inaugural W.J. Usery Distinguished Lecture
April 8, 749 AYSPS, Richard Freeman (Harvard University) presented "Can We Improve Worker Well-Being in the New Global Economy?"
