Professor Walter Oi, the Elmer B. Milliman Professor of Economics at the University of Rochester, has been named a fellow of the American Economic Association for his intellectual achievements and contributions to the field. Only two economists are honored each year as fellows.
Oi's research on employment, wages, prices, the economics of health and safety, and the effects of disabilities have earned him international recognition and broad scholarly acclaim. Oi has received numerous honors for his work. In 1993, Oi was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He also has served as President of the Western Economics Association.
As an internationally known authority on applied economic theory and labor markets, Oi helped persuade the Nixon administration and Congress to end the military draft in the early 1970s as staff economist for the President's Commission on an All-Volunteer Armed Force.
His influence on U.S. public policy continued in later years as he served as vice chair of the President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities. Oi also has consulted for the Department of Defense and the National Commission on State and Workmen's Compensation Laws.
Professor Oi joined the University of Rochester in 1967. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Chicago. He has been a senior research economist for the Industrial Relations Section at Princeton University and a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution. He taught at the University of Washington, Northwestern University, and Iowa State University before coming to Rochester in 1967. He was chair of the economics department from 1976 to 1982.
He is the second member of the Department to be selected a fellow by the American Economic Association; Lionel McKenzie was selected in 1993.
For more information, please contact the economics department at (585) 275-5252.
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