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Acknowledgments
This report was made possible by the work of a great many people. I
should like to record here my indebtedness to some of them.
The Panel held eight meetings, all of which were well attended. In
addition, most members of the Panel drafted chapters of the report or
wrote papers that are included in this volume. All of them participated
actively in Panel deliberations and helped to form the report through their
detailed comments and suggestions. Nevertheless, as noted in Chapter 1,
not every member of the Panel necessarily agrees with everything in the
report.
The Panel also benefited from the contribution of William E. Bittle, of
the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, who
participated in the Panel deliberations when Reginald Newell was unable
to attend and assisted in the review of written materials.
The Panel relied heavily on its able and hardworking stab: Dave M.
O'Neill, staff director; Sharon De Sha, stab officer; John W. Kendrick,
consultant; and Gloria A. Wise, secretary. In addition to such routine
tasks as arranging meetings, preparing minutes, and collecting source
materials, members of the staff drafted several chapters of the report and
contributed substantially to all of them.
An important support role was played by other members of the staff and
committees of the National Research Council. Among these I should like
to mention particularly Margaret E. Martin, who attended many meetings
of the Panel and whose broad knowledge of official statistics was of great
help. Eugenia Grohman and Christine L. McShane provided us with
. .
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V111
Acknowledgments
valuable editorial assistance. Special recognition should be given to the
unique role of William Kruskal, who was chairman of the Committee on
National Statistics when we began our work. Throughout our efforts,
Dean Kruskal has made incisive comments, repeatedly calling into
question concepts that economists too easily take for granted. He has thus
acted as the conscience of the Panel. That we have not succeeded in
answering many of his questions is not his fault.
Our meetings were attended by a number of observers from the
statistical agencies of the federal government, who participated in our
discussions and often provided much-needed information and saved us
from serious error. Several of these observers also read drafts of chapters
and commented on them. Although I cannot list all of these observers
here, I should like to mention particularly the valuable inputs of Jerome
Mark and his staff of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S.
Department of Labor and Martin Marimont and his staff of the Bureau of
Economic Analysis of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
This volume contains a number of papers by members and staff of the
Panel, outside consultants, and members of the staffs of federal statistical
agencies. We have drawn on these extensively in preparing our report. The
version of the paper by John G. Myers and Leonard Nakamura that
appears here is substantially shorter than their original thorough study.
The full paper is available from the National Technical Information
Service.
A draft of this report was reviewed by three sets of reviewers: the
Committee on National Statistics and the Assembly of Behavioral and
Social Sciences of the National Research Council and the Report Review
Committee of the National Academy of Sciences. We are grateful to these
reviewers for the great care they have taken in reviewing the draft and for
their many valuable suggestions.
Finally, I should like to thank the agency that funded our work, the
National Center for Productivity and Quality of Working Life. This study
would not have been possible without its active support. The National
Center recognized the importance of the subject and initiated discussions
with the Committee on National Statistics, which created our panel. The
Center's executive director, George Kuper, and its staff gave us help
throughout our work. In particular, Edgar Weinberg participated actively
in formulating the study and provided continuing intellectual and
administrative support. Although the National Center no longer exists, its
functions are being carried out elsewhere in the federal government.
ALBERT REES, Chairman
Panel to Review Productivity Statistics
