Featured Researcher: Ernst Berndt

06/30/2005
Featured in print Bulletin on Aging & Health
Ernst Berndt

Ernst Berndt is the Director of the Program on Productivity and Technological Change at the NBER; he is also a Research Associate in the NBER’s Health Care program. He has been affiliated with the NBER since 1980.

Berndt is the Louis B. Seley Professor of Applied Economics at the Sloan School of Managements at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also Co-Director of the MIT-Harvard Biomedical Enterprise Program, and of the MIT Center for Biomedical Innovation. 

Berndt is a Fellow of the Econometric Society. He has served on the editorial boards of numerous journals,including the Journal of Econometrics, the Southern Economic Journal, and Economic Inquiry. He has served as a member of various advisory panels for the National Science Foundation, the National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. Census Bureau, and recently completed a term as Chair of the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee. He received a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and an B.A. in Economics from Valparaiso University in Indiana, as well as an honorary doctorate from Uppsala University in Sweden.

Berndt’s research focuses on productivity and health care issues. Some of his recent work has examined the marketing of prescription drugs to consumers, price indexes for medical care goods and services, and the economic burden of depression. Berndt and his wife, Joan, have recently become grandparents for a third time,with the benefit of all three grandchildren living nearby. They enjoy traveling (particularly to French speaking areas), concerts in  Tanglewood, and searching for 18th century French antique furniture.