Kenneth D. West

Last updated
Kenneth D. West
Born1953 (age 6970)
NationalityAmerican
Academic career
Institution University of Wisconsin–Madison
Field Econometrics and Economics
Alma mater MIT (Ph.D.)
Wesleyan University (B.A.)
Doctoral
advisor
Stanley Fischer [1]
Contributions Newey–West estimator
Information at IDEAS / RePEc

Kenneth David West (born 1953) is the John D. MacArthur and Ragnar Frisch Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics at the University of Wisconsin. He is currently co-editor of the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking , [2] and has previously served as co-editor of the American Economic Review . [3] He has published widely in the fields of macroeconomics, finance, international economics and econometrics. Among his honors are the John M. Stauffer National Fellowship in Public Policy at the Hoover Institution, Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, Fellow of the Econometric Society, and Abe Fellowship. [4] He has been a research associate at the NBER since 1985. [5]

Contents

West received a B.A. in economics and mthematics from Wesleyan University in 1973 and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1983. [6] He taught at Princeton University from 1983 to 1988 before joining the University of Wisconsin in 1988. He has held visiting scholar positions at several central banks and at several branches of the U.S. Federal Reserve System. He has published widely in the fields of macroeconomics, finance, international economics and econometrics. Administrative positions include two terms as chair of the Economics Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Academic PositionsYears Active
Princeton University
Assistant Professor of Economics and Public Affairs1983-1988
University of Wisconsin
Associate Professor of Economics1988-1990
Director, Social Systems Research Institute1991-1994
Professor of Economics1990–present
Ragnar Fischer Professor of Economics1998–present
Department Chair1999-2001, 2005-2008
John D. MacArthur Professor2008–present

He is best known for developing, with Whitney K. Newey, the Newey–West estimator, which robustly estimates the covariance matrix of a regression model when errors are heteroskedastic and autocorrelated. [7] [8]

HonorsYear(s)
National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow1980-1983
John M. Stauffer National Fellowship in Public Policy, Hoover Institution1985-1986
Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow1989-1991
H. I. Romnes Faculty Fellowship, University of Wisconsin1991
Fellow, Economics Society1993
Mid-Career Faculty Fellowship, University of Wisconsin1995
WARF/University Houses Professorship, University of Wisconsin1998
Listed in Who's Who in Economics, 4th edition, M. Blaug (ed), Edward Elgar Publishing2003
Fellow of the Journal of Econometrics2007
Vilas Associate, University of Wisconsin2008-2010
John D. MacArthur Professor, University of Wisconsin2008
Distinguished Honors Faculty Award, University of Wisconsin2010
Wim Duisenberg Research Fellowship, European Central Bank2010, 2016
Founding Fellow, International Association for Applied Econometrics2018

Personal life

West lives in Madison, Wisconsin with his wife and two children.

Contributions

Newey–West estimator

A Newey–West estimator is used in statistics and econometrics to provide an estimate of the covariance matrix of the parameters of a regression-type model when this model is applied in situations where the standard assumptions of regression analysis do not apply. It was devised by Whitney K. Newey and Kenneth D. West in 1987, although there are a number of later variants. The estimator is used to try to overcome autocorrelation (also called serial correlation), and heteroskedasticity in the error terms in the models, often for regressions applied to time series data. [9]

Selected publications

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References

  1. West, Kenneth D. (1983). Inventory models and backlog costs : an empirical investigation (PDF) (Ph.D.). MIT . Retrieved 23 May 2017.
  2. https://jmcb.osu.edu/jmbc-boards, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1538-4616 Journal of Money, Credit and Banking (Accessed Mar 2018)
  3. "Past Editors and Coeditors". Editors of the American Economic Review. Retrieved 16 March 2018.
  4. "West's brief biography at the University of Wisconsin". ssc.wisc.edu.
  5. http://www.nber.org/people/kenneth_west NBER Kenneth West(Accessed Aug 2011)
  6. http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~kwest/west.kd.CV.pdf West's CV at the University of Wisconsin (Accessed Dec 2017)
  7. https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~kwest/ West's faculty page at the University of Wisconsin (Accessed Aug 2011)
  8. Newey, Whitney K.; West, Kenneth D. (1987). "A Simple, Positive Semi-definite, Heteroskedasticity and Autocorrelation Consistent Covariance Matrix" (PDF). Econometrica. 55 (3): 703–708. doi:10.2307/1913610. JSTOR   1913610. S2CID   122867679.
  9. Newey, Whitney K.; West, Kenneth D. (1987). "A Simple, Positive Semi-Definite, Heteroskedasticity and Autocorrelation Consistent Covariance Matrix" (PDF). Econometrica. 55 (3): 703–708. doi:10.2307/1913610. JSTOR   1913610. S2CID   122867679.