MAPI Announces the Winners of the Inaugural Daniel Meckstroth Award for Excellence in Manufacturing Research
At a time where there is too often a commonly held belief that U.S. manufacturing is in decline and is a poor career choice, the Daniel Meckstroth Award for Excellence in Manufacturing Research aims to showcase the value and improve the competitiveness of American manufacturing through original economic research.
Dr. Daniel Meckstroth served as MAPI’s lead economist from 1990-2016 and also served as a council director for the Purchasing Council. Prior to joining MAPI, he was a supervisor of economic research in the corporate strategy and development group at Armco (now AK Steel). His specialties included macroeconomics, international economics, industrial economics, manufacturing, and purchasing. While at MAPI, Dr. Meckstroth gained acclaim for being one of America’s premier manufacturing researchers and a chief economic spokesperson for the U.S. manufacturing sector. His quarterly industrial forecast provided a benchmark for manufacturing companies for two decades and is still in publication.
MAPI partnered with the National Association for Business Economics (NABE) to establish an award in honor of Dr. Meckstroth’s contribution to economics and the manufacturing sector. The award was announced in the fall of 2017, and submissions went through a three-step selection process by a selection committee appointed by the editor of Business Economics.
We are proud to co-present Kevin L. Kliesen, CBE, business economist and research officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and John A. Tatom, fellow, Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health and the Study of Business Enterprise, at The Johns Hopkins University with the inaugural Daniel Meckstroth Award for Excellence in Manufacturing Research for their original research titled “Is American Manufacturing in Decline?”. Their research outlines the factors contributing to “the widespread viewpoint that American manufacturing is in decline, and suggests a competing narrative that the manufacturing sector is fundamentally strong and will continue to grow.” Their research highlights the following signs of American manufacturing growth:
- Manufacturing output has been growing at a 2.2% annual rate since the Great Recession.
- Manufacturing employment has been growing at 1.1% annual rate since 2010.
- U.S. imports are growing. There is a strong positive correlation between imports and manufacturing output and employment.
MAPI President and CEO Stephen Gold commented, “Congratulations to Kevin and John on their insightful economic research depicting the growth of the manufacturing sector. You have set a high bar for future winners, and we look forward to reading additional research.”
