Dale Jorgenson, a Faculty Fellow of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program (HEEP) since HEEP’s founding in 2000, passed away on June 8, 2022 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Jorgenson was the Samuel W. Morris University Professor at Harvard University — a University Professorship being the highest honor Harvard bestows on a faculty member. He was an advisor to hundreds of economics graduate students and widely acknowledged as a caring and dedicated mentor.
Robert Stavins, Director of HEEP, commented that “Dale Jorgenson was a wonderful teacher, collaborator, and friend from the time I arrived at Harvard as a PhD student in 1983, throughout my years on the Harvard Kennedy School faculty, and through this year. I have wonderful memories of spending time with Dale and his wife Linda, as well as Bill and Mari-Ann Hogan, on a series of trips to Tokyo as part of the work of the Harvard-Japan Project on Energy and Environment, which Dale and Bill co-directed.”
Jorgenson conducted groundbreaking research on information technology and economic growth, energy and the environment, tax policy and investment behavior, and applied econometrics. He was the author of more than 300 articles in economics and the author and editor of 37 books. Jorgenson was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal by the American Economic Association in 1971 and served as President of the Association in 2000. He was the recipient of nine honorary doctorates and membership in the American Philosophical Society, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Jorgenson was a Founding Member of the Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy of the National Research Council in 1991 and served as Chairman of the Board from 1998 to 2006. He was chairman of the advisory committee of the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis from 2004 to 2011.
In an obituary, the Wall Street Journal quotes and paraphrases Lawrence H. Summers, another HEEP Faculty Fellow and former U.S. treasury secretary and president of Harvard:
“Dale was a towering figure in economics for more than 50 years.” Dr. Jorgenson’s work on the cost of capital provided new ways of examining corporate investment and tax policy, Dr. Summers said, and he had the “audacity and energy to put together his own version of the national income accounts,” influencing methods used to report economic data around the world.
Jorgenson applied his work in econometrics and economic growth to environmental policy. In particular, he published a number of papers with Peter Wilcoxen on environmental regulation and climate-change policy. Jorgenson co-founded the Harvard China Project on Energy, Economy and Environment, which conducted policy-oriented research on environmental problems (primarily local air pollution, as well as greenhouse-gas emissions), policy, and economic growth in China. In the context of the Harvard China Project, he had a long-standing collaboration with Jing Cao, a professor at Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management, an alumna of Harvard Kennedy School’s Ph.D. program in Public Policy, and a former HEEP Pre-Doctoral Fellow.
See references to selected papers and books on environmental economics below. See also, on the website of the Harvard China Project, an article in memory of Jorgenson and recollections of Mun S. Ho, a former doctoral student and frequent collaborator of Jorgenson on environmental economics and policy -- especially in China.
John Fernald, Professor of Economics at INSEAD Business School and Senior Research Adviser, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, wrote an intellectual biography of Jorgenson earlier in 2022. Fernald’s paper is timely and provides detailed insight into Jorgenson’s contributions to economics and policy. It is appropriate to close with portions of his abstract:
Dale W. Jorgenson has been a central contributor to a wide range of economic and policy issues over a long and productive career. His research is characterized by a tight integration of economic theory, appropriate data that matches the theory, and sound econometrics. His groundbreaking work on the theory and empirics of investment established the research path for the economics profession. He is a founder of modern growth accounting: Official statistics in many countries, including the United States, implement Jorgenson’s methods…Jorgenson is also a pioneer in econometric modeling of producer and consumer behavior and of econometrically estimated, intertemporal general equilibrium modeling for policy analysis.
Dale Jorgenson will be missed greatly, but his influence as a researcher and teacher will continue to be felt for generations.
Selected papers and books by Dale Jorgenson on environment topics:
Dale W. Jorgenson and Peter J. Wilcoxen. 1990. “Environmental Regulation and U.S. Economic Growth.” Rand Journal of Economics. Vol. 21: 314-340. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2555426
Dale W. Jorgenson and Peter J. Wilcoxen. 1993. "Energy, the Environment, and Economic growth." In Handbook of Natural Resource and Energy Economics, eds. A. V. Kneese and J. L. Sweeney. Vol. 3: 1267-1349. Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1573-4439(05)80014-4
Dale. W. Jorgenson and Peter J. Wilcoxen. 1993. “Reducing U.S. Carbon Dioxide Emissions: An Assessment of Different Instruments.” Journal of Policy Modeling, Special Issue: Symposium on Applied General Equilibrium Modeling. Vol. 15: 491–520. https://doi.org/10.1016/0161-8938(93)90003-9.
Dale W. Jorgenson, Richard J. Goettle, Mun S. Ho, and Peter J. Wilcoxen. 2013. Double Dividend: Environmental Taxes and Fiscal Reform in the United States. Cambridge, MIT Press.
Dale W. Jorgenson, Richard J. Goettle, Mun S. Ho, and Peter J. Wilcoxen. 2013. “Energy, the Environment, and U.S. Economic Growth.” In Handbook of Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, eds Peter B. Dixon and Dale W. Jorgenson, Vol. 1: 477–552. Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-444-59568-3.00008-0.
Dale W. Jorgenson, Mun S. Ho, and Jing Cao. 2013. “The Economics of Environmental Policies in China.” In Clearer Skies Over China: Reconciling Air Quality, Climate, and Economic Goals, eds. Chris P. Nielsen and Mun S. Ho. Cambridge, MIT Press.
Jing Cao, Mun S. Ho, Dale W. Jorgenson, and Chris P. Nielsen. 2019. “China’s Emissions Trading System and an ETS-Carbon Tax Hybrid.” Energy Economics, Vol. 81: 741–53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2019.04.029.