Dr. Robert H. McGuckin was the Director of Economic Research at The Conference Board. Besides overseeing economic research, including the Business Cycle and Leading Indicators program, he authored Perspectives on a Global Economy, which analyzed major economic issues, and Performance, an annual report that provided country-by-country comparisons of productivity and living standards. He also wrote reports on a variety of economic and business topics, including most recently China's reform process and the impacts of information and communication technology on economic performance.
Before joining The Conference Board in 1996, Dr. McGuckin was Chief of the Center for Economic Studies (CES) at the U.S. Bureau of the Census, where he guided development of the Longitudinal Research Database (LRD) and a broad research program in both statistics and economics. Under his leadership, CES became a world leader in the development of microdata approaches to economic theory and policy.
Dr. McGuckin held several positions with the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice from 1974 to 1986, including Assistant Director of the Economic Policy Office and Director of Research for the Economic Analysis Group. While at the Department of Justice, he was named the Victor H. Kramer Fellow at the University of Chicago School of Law for the 1978/79 academic year. Dr. McGuckin was Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of California at Santa Barbara from 1970 to 1976. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1970 and his B.A., cum laude, in Mathematics from Ithaca College in 1965.
Dr. McGuckin was an expert in industrial organization, productivity, economic indicators, and statistics. He spoke regularly on economic and statistical topics to professional, business, and public groups. Dr. McGuckin authored numerous articles on economic and statistical issues in refereed professional journals and business publications. Some of his final work focused on diffusion of information and communication technology, mergers and acquisitions, China's economic reforms and their impact on business performance, and business cycle indicators. He also wrote on a wide range of other topics, from the impact of the Euro on labor markets and economic growth, to the effect of aggregation on economic relationships.
Dr. McGuckin served as a director of the American Arbitration Association and the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics (COPAFS), and as an advisor to government, professional and research organizations. He also served as a director of the Center for the Study of Contracts and Structure of Industry at the University of Pittsburgh's Katz School of Business and had been a member on the Business Advisory Board, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
Publications
Executive Action