Arthur Melvin "Art" Okun (November 28, 1928 – March 23, 1980) was an American economist. He served as the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers between 1968 and 1969. Before serving on the C.E.A., he was a professor at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

and, afterwards, was a fellow at the

Brookings Institution The Brookings Institution, often stylized as simply Brookings, is an American research group founded in 1916. Located on Think Tank Row in Washington, D.C., the organization conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in e ...

in Washington, D.C. In 1968 he 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 number of new fellows per year is limited ...

. Okun is known in particular for promulgating

Okun's law In economics, Okun's law is an empirically observed relationship between unemployment and losses in a country's production. It is named after Arthur Melvin Okun, who first proposed the relationship in 1962. The "gap version" states that for ever ...

, an observed relationship that states that for every 1% increase in the

unemployment rate Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work during the refere ...

, a country's

GDP Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjective nature this measure is ofte ...

will be roughly an additional 2.5% lower than its potential GDP. He is also known as the creator of the misery index and the analogy of the

deadweight loss In economics, deadweight loss is the difference in production and consumption of any given product or service including government tax. The presence of deadweight loss is most commonly identified when the quantity produced ''relative'' to the amoun ...

of taxation with a leaky bucket. He died on March 23, 1980 of a heart attack.Arthur Okun Dies, Economic Adviser to Johnson
accessed 2020-08-14.

Works

* ''Equality and Efficiency: The Big Tradeoff'' (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1975) * ''Prices and Quantities: A Macroeconomic Analysis''
see here
(1981)

References

External links

Brookings Inst Bio and Obit
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Okun, Arthur Melvin 1928 births 1980 deaths 20th-century American economists Columbia College (New York) alumni Columbia University alumni Economists from New Jersey Fellows of the American Statistical Association Fellows of the Econometric Society People from Jersey City, New Jersey Neo-Keynesian economists Yale University faculty Yale Sterling Professors Chairs of the United States Council of Economic Advisers

Works

See also

References

External links