New Discoveries - Jack Barron bids adieu to the Krannert School

After 47 years on the Krannert faculty, Jack Barron is looking forward to retirement.

Barron joined Purdue in 1975 after earning his MA and PhD in economics from Brown University and spending his fourth year of graduate school at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. “I enjoyed both the college experience and the discipline of economics, so pursuing graduate school in economics and an academic position afterward were natural choices,” he says.

Barron was impressed by the Purdue faculty on his first visit to the university. “They were congenial, but at the same time had produced both high-quality research and established a high-quality PhD program,” he says. “Also, the college-town setting was attractive as my wife and I had a growing family.”

His primary teaching interests include the economics of information and macroeconomics, while his research interests are labor economics and contract theory. He has served as the Loeb Professor of Economics as well as head of the Department of Economics.

Barron is also a faculty affiliate in the Purdue University Research Center in Economics (PURCE), which he was instrumental in launching in 2013 along with Krannert economics professor John Umbeck and current department head Justin Tobias.

He has had numerous articles published, including papers in the American Economic Review, Journal of Human Resources, Journal of Law and Economics, International Economic Review, Review of Economics and Statistics, and the Journal of Labor Economics.

“A significant change in research has been the introduction of personal computers in the early eighties and the dramatic expansion of digitally accessible datasets,” Barron says. “My first personal computer in the early 1980s was a ‘state-of-the-art’ IBM XT. Even though such a computer had only a 10 MB hard drive and a price above $5,000, demand was so high that I was lucky to find one at an obscure agricultural supply store in Brookston, Indiana.”

Over the course of his career, Barron has been a consultant to the U.S. Department of Labor, the Small Business Administration, ARCO, Texaco, Shell, Visa International, Amoco, and various law firms. He has received research grants from the Brookings Institution, the Department of Labor, the National Institutes of Health, the Carthage Foundation, the National Science Foundation, Small Business Administration, and W.E. Upjohn Foundation, among others.

Some of Barron’s favorite memories from his time at Krannert include weekly outings after work on Friday at local establishments. “These outings, attended by both PhD students and faculty in Economics, helped establish a strong esprit de corps among faculty and students as well as providing an informal setting to talk shop,” he says.

Barron has also witnessed numerous changes to teaching during his career. “One important change has been the adoption of online courses and programs,” he says. “In this regard, the willingness and ability of the economics faculty to create a high-quality online program (MS in Economics) years before others has been very impressive.”

Upon his retirement at the end of the 2021-22 academic year, Barron plans to spend more time with family and discover new activities such as golf. “I also look forward to not having to grade exams,” he says.

Written by Eric Nelson