Edward Fulton Denison (December 18, 1915,

Omaha Omaha ( ) is the List of cities in Nebraska, most populous city in the U.S. state of Nebraska. It is located in the Midwestern United States along the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's List of United S ...

– October 23, 1992,

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) was an American economist.... He was a pioneer in the measurement of the United States

gross national product The gross national income (GNI), previously known as gross national product (GNP), is the total amount of factor incomes earned by the residents of a country. It is equal to gross domestic product (GDP), plus factor incomes received from n ...

and one of the founders of

growth accounting Growth accounting is a procedure used in economics to measure the contribution of different factors to economic growth and to indirectly compute the rate of technological progress, measured as a residual, in an economy. Growth accounting decomposes ...

. Denison earned a bachelor's degree in economics in

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1833, it is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational lib ...

in 1936, a master's degree in

Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...

in 1938, and a doctorate from Brown in 1941. In 1948, he became acting chief of the National Income Division of the

Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce The Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce (BFDC) was a bureau in the United States Department of Commerce and Labor from 1912-1953 that conducted statistical analysis, promoted trade and industry. Organizational History The BFDC was establishe ...

. The next year, Edward also acted as assistant director and Chief Economist of the Office of Business Economics. In 1956 he left OBE to work for the

Committee for Economic Development The Committee for Economic Development of The Conference Board (CED) is an American nonprofit and nonpartisan public policy think tank. The board of trustees consist primarily of senior corporate executives from a range of U.S. industries an ...

. From 1963, he served as a senior member of the

Brookings Institution The Brookings Institution, often stylized as Brookings, is an American think tank that conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics (and tax policy), metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, global econo ...

on economic research. In 1966 Denison was elected as a

Fellow of the American Statistical Association Like many other academic professional societies, the American Statistical Association (ASA) uses the title of Fellow of the American Statistical Association as its highest honorary grade of membership. The designation of ASA Fellow has been a sign ...

. He became a distinguished fellow of the

American Economic Association The American Economic Association (AEA) is a learned society in the field of economics, with approximately 23,000 members. It publishes several peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Review, an ...

in 1981. He married Elsie Lightbown. His daughter,

Janet Howell Janet Denison Howell (born May 7, 1944 in Washington, D.C.) is an American politician. A Democrat, she was elected to the Senate of Virginia in 1991, where she represented the 32nd district in Fairfax County and portions of Arlington County unti ...

has served in the Virginia Senate since 1992.

Selected works

*''Trends in American economic growth, 1929-1982'' (1962), published on ''

The Journal of Business ''The Journal of Business'' was an academic journal published by the University of Chicago Press. It aimed to cover "a comprehensive range of areas, including business finance and investment, money and banking, marketing, security markets, business ...

'' *''The Residual Factor and Economic Growth'' (

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, 1962) *''The Sources of Economic Growth in the United States & the Alternatives Before us'' (

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, 1962), one that describes his theory mostly *''Why growth rates differ; postwar experience in nine western countries'' ( Washington D. C., 1967) *''Accounting for United States economic growth, 1929-1969'' (Washington D. C., 1974) *''Accounting for slower economic growth : the United States in the 1970s'' (Washington D. C., 1979)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Denison, Edward Fulton 1915 births 1992 deaths Oberlin College alumni Brown University alumni 20th-century American economists People from Omaha, Nebraska Fellows of the American Statistical Association Mathematicians from Nebraska Distinguished fellows of the American Economic Association Economists from Nebraska