John Haltiwanger

National Bureau of Economic Research, United States Census Bureau

Papers

Total Citations

194

H-Index

About

John Haltiwanger is a leading economist whose work has fundamentally reshaped our understanding of firm dynamics, job creation, and the impact of technological change on the workforce. His research centers on the microeconomic underpinnings of macroeconomic phenomena, particularly how businesses—from startups to established giants—drive employment, productivity, and economic growth. A major contribution is his pioneering use of new, granular survey data to reveal the real-world effects of automation. His highly cited work, including the 2022 study "Automation and the Workforce: A Firm-Level View from the 2019 Annual Business Survey" (garnering over 140 combined citations), leverages a novel Census Bureau module to provide the first comprehensive, cross-sector picture of automation adoption across the U.S. economy. Further, in "Advanced Technology Adoption: Selection or Causal Effects?" (2023, 48 citations), he demonstrates a critical insight: firms that adopt advanced technologies were already larger and growing faster, challenging simple causal narratives. Haltiwanger’s meticulous empirical approach, often using large-scale longitudinal datasets, has made him an indispensable voice in debates on innovation, inequality, and labor market policy.