Halbert White

Halbert Lynn White
Born	(1950-11-19)November 19, 1950 Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.
Died	March 31, 2012(2012-03-31) (aged 61) San Diego, California, U.S.
Academic background
Education	Princeton University (BA) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD)
Doctoral advisor	Jerry A. Hausman Robert Solow Lester Thurow
Academic work
Discipline	Econometrics
Institutions	University of Rochester University of California, San Diego
Doctoral students	Jeffrey Wooldridge
Notable ideas	White test Heteroscedasticity-consistent standard errors

Halbert Lynn White Jr. (November 19, 1950 – March 31, 2012) was the Chancellor's Associates Distinguished Professor of Economics at the University of California, San Diego, and a Fellow of the Econometric Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Education and career

White, a native of Kansas City, Missouri, graduated salutatorian from Southwest High School in 1968. He went on to study at Princeton University, receiving his B.A. in economics in 1972. He earned his Ph.D. in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1976, under the supervision of Jerry A. Hausman and Robert Solow. White spent his first years as an assistant professor in the University of Rochester before moving to University of California, San Diego (UCSD) in 1979. He remained at UCSD until his untimely death from cancer.

Research

White was well known in the field of econometrics for his 1980 paper on robust standard errors (which is among the most-cited paper in economics since 1970), and for the heteroscedasticity-consistent estimator and the test for heteroskedasticity that are named after him. A 1982 paper by White contributed strongly to the development of quasi-maximum likelihood estimation. He also contributed to numerous other areas such as neural networks and medicine. In 1999, White co-founded an economic consulting firm, Bates White, which is based in Washington, D.C.

External links

• Faculty profile at the University of California, San Diego's website
• Halbert Lynn White Jr. at the Mathematics Genealogy Project