Katharine G. Abraham

Katharine G. Abraham is a co-chair of BPC’s Evidence-Based Policymaking Initiative. She previously served as chair of the U.S. Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking, appointed by President Barack Obama.

Abraham is a professor of economics and survey methodology at the University of Maryland. She has written extensively on the effects of labor market institutions and policies on firm and worker behavior; labor market adjustment over the business cycle; and the measurement of economic activity. Abraham first joined the University of Maryland faculty in 1987, after holding prior positions at the Brookings Institution and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management.

From 2011 to 2013, Abraham served as a member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers; and from 1993 to 2001, she served as commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. She is a fellow of the Society of Labor Economists and of the American Statistical Association and has served as a vice president of the American Economic Association.

Abraham received a B.S. from Iowa State University and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.