Arthur Melvin Okun

Arthur Melvin "Art" Okun (November 28, 1928 – March 23, 1980) was an American economist.

Art Okun
7th Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers
In office February 15, 1968 – January 20, 1969
President	Lyndon Johnson
Preceded by	Gardner Ackley
Succeeded by	Paul McCracken
Personal details
Born	Arthur Melvin Okun (1928-11-28)November 28, 1928 Jersey City, New Jersey, U.S.
Died	March 23, 1980(1980-03-23) (aged 51) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Education	Columbia University (BA, MA, PhD)
Academic background
Doctoral advisor	Arthur F. Burns
Influences	John Maynard Keynes
Academic work
Discipline	Macroeconomics
School or tradition	Neo-Keynesian economics
Institutions	Yale University
Notable ideas	Okun's law Misery index

Okun is known in particular for Okun's law, an observed relationship that states that for every 1% increase in the unemployment rate, a country's GDP 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 of taxation with a leaky bucket.^[1]

Biography

Okun graduated from Columbia College in 1949 with the Albert Asher Green Memorial Prize for the highest GPA.^[2] He went on to obtain a Ph.D. in economics from Columbia in 1956 before teaching at Yale University.^[3]

He served as the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers between 1968 and 1969. Afterwards, he became a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. In 1968 he was elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association.^[4]

He died on March 23, 1980, of a heart attack.^[5]

Works

• Equality and Efficiency: The Big Tradeoff (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1975)
• Prices and Quantities: A Macroeconomic Analysis, see here (1981) ISBN 0-8157-6480-4