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John M. Abowd

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Adapted from the English Wikipedia article John M. Abowd, available under CC BY-SA 4.0Updated 1 December 202515 sources
John M. Abowd
Born (1951-12-22) December 22, 1951 (age 74)
Occupation(s)Economist, Professor Emeritus
Years active1977–present
Known forLabor economics, longitudinal matched employee-employer data, AKM decomposition
Notable work"High Wage Workers and High Wage Firms" (with Francis Kramarz and David Margolis)

John Maron Abowd (born December 22, 1951) is a distinguished American economist who holds the title of Edmund Ezra Day Professor Emeritus in Economics, Statistics, and Data Science as of 2021.[1][2] Between 2016 and 2022, he fulfilled the roles of Associate Director for Research and Methodology as well as Chief Scientist at the United States Census Bureau.[1][2]

Since 1987, Abowd has been a faculty member at Cornell University, including a seven-year tenure at the Johnson Graduate School of Management. He is particularly recognized for his contributions to labor economics, focusing on the creation and application of longitudinal matched data linking employees and employers.

Career

Abowd completed his undergraduate education with a Bachelor of Arts in economics, graduating with highest honors from the University of Notre Dame in 1973. He then earned his doctoral degree in economics from the University of Chicago in 1977 under the mentorship of Arnold Zellner.[3]

Prior to joining Cornell, he held academic appointments at Princeton University, the University of Chicago, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[4]

He maintains affiliations as a research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a research affiliate at CREST, and a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).[2] Additionally, Abowd serves as director of Cornell’s Labor Dynamics Institute (LDI).[5][6] In 2014, he was honored as a Fellow of the Econometric Society.[7]

Abowd held the presidency of the Society of Labor Economists in 2014,[8] chaired the Business and Economic Statistics Section in 2013, and is recognized as a fellow of the American Statistical Association. He was elected to membership in the International Statistical Institute in 2012. His tenure as a senior research fellow at the Census Bureau spanned from 1998 to 2012. Furthermore, he contributed to the National Academies' Committee on National Statistics between 2010 and 2013,[9] and led Cornell’s Institute for Social and Economic Research (CISER) from 1999 through 2007.[4]

Abowd has been principal investigator on multiple multi-year grants funded by agencies such as the National Science Foundation, U.S. Census Bureau, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.[4][10][11][12][13]

Together with John Haltiwanger and Julia Lane, Abowd was awarded the Roger Herriot Award by the American Statistical Association in 2014 for enhancing federal data collection via employee-employer matched datasets through the Census Bureau’s LEHD Program.[14][15]

Current research

Abowd's ongoing investigations focus on the development, distribution, and safeguarding of privacy in matched longitudinal datasets involving employers and employees. He played a pivotal role in establishing and currently provides scientific guidance for the U.S. Census Bureau's Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Program. This initiative combines census data, demographic and economic surveys, as well as administrative records to generate research outputs and publicly accessible datasets.

Additional areas of his research include the application of network models to integrated labor market data; statistical techniques aimed at protecting confidentiality in microdata, such as the generation of synthetic datasets; cross-national comparisons of labor market outcomes; executive pay structures; institutions governing bargaining and wage determination; and econometric methodologies tailored for labor market analysis.

Major contributions to economics

Abowd has an extensive publication record in labor economics, with his work appearing in prestigious journals including the American Economic Review, Econometrica, and the Quarterly Journal of Economics.

His seminal paper "High Wage Workers and High Wage Firms," co-written with Francis Kramarz and David Margolis, introduced what is now known as the "AKM decomposition." Utilizing matched employee-employer data from France, this method decomposes wages into components attributable to worker characteristics, individual heterogeneity, firm-specific effects, and residual factors. This econometric framework has become foundational for subsequent studies on wage disparities, firm size impacts, and labor market matching mechanisms.

Together with David Card, Abowd examined longitudinal variations in earnings and work hours, investigating their covariance within a life-cycle model of labor supply.

His research portfolio also includes extensive analyses of executive compensation, focusing particularly on the relationship between performance-based remuneration and corporate outcomes.

External links

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named :0
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named :1
  3. ↑ John M. Abowd's Curriculum Vitae
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named courses
  5. ↑ Labor Dynamics Institute at Cornell University
  6. ↑ "New Labor Dynamics Institute to Shed New Light on Labor Market," Cornell Chronicle, October 5, 2011.
  7. ↑ "Current Fellows". www.econometricsociety.org. Retrieved 2025-09-19.
  8. ↑ Society of Labor Economists
  9. ↑ National Academies' Committee on National Statistics
  10. ↑ "NSF Awards $2.9 Million Grant," Cornell Daily Sun, October 31, 2004.
  11. ↑ "ILR School Receives $3 Million To Improve Census Data," Cornell Daily Sun, November 1, 2011.
  12. ↑ "NSF grant funds ILR research to unlock U.S. Census data," Cornell Chronicle, October 17, 2011.
  13. ↑ "NSF grant opens gateway to vast computing resources," Cornell Chronicle, July 27, 2009.
  14. ↑ "ASA Roger Herriot Award". Retrieved 2014-06-19.
  15. ↑ "Statisticians to Honor Census Scientist John Abowd," Cornell Chronicle, June 17, 2014.

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