Alan Heston

Alan W. Heston (born 1934 in Portland, Oregon) is an American economist best known for his collaborative work with fellow economist Robert Summers and the development of the Penn World Table (PWT).

Education and early life

Heston was born October 18, 1934 and raised in Portland, Oregon. In 1955, he received his B.A. in Economics from the University of Oregon. He received his M.A. in Economics from the University of Washington in 1957. In 1962, he received his Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University, where he studied under James Tobin, the winner of the 1981 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

Academic career

Heston is a professor emeritus in the Department of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, where he has taught since 1962. Prior to teaching at the University of Pennsylvania, Heston was an Assistant Professor at Yale University.

Heston co-directs (with Robert Summers) the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for International Comparisons (CIC). The precursor to CIC was the United Nations’ (UN) International Comparison Programme (ICP), which Heston joined in its first year in 1968. The ICP developed the first systematic multilateral set of purchasing power comparisons. Heston participated in the ICP’s benchmark comparisons and, by 1985, with Summers and Irving Kravis, expanded the number of countries included in the comparison database to 34 countries. That same year Heston and Summers developed benchmark comparisons of gross domestic product estimates on a purchasing power basis for non-benchmark countries for one year. Heston and Summers continued these comparisons and extended the estimates over both time and space in an effort that became the Penn World Table. For that work, Summers and Alan Heston were recognized as American Economic Association Distinguished Fellows in 1998. Heston is considered a leading world expert on international economic comparisons and purchasing power parity.

Heston

Coordinates: 51°29′07″N 0°22′44″W / 51.4852°N 0.3788°W / 51.4852; -0.3788

Heston is a suburban area of the London Borough of Hounslow, west London. The residential settlement covers a slightly smaller area than its predecessor farming village, 10.8 miles (17.4 km) west south-west of Charing Cross and adjoins the M4 motorway but has no junction with it; Heston also adjoins the Great West Road, a dual carriageway, mostly west of the 'Golden Mile' headquarters section of it.

History

The village of Heston is north of Hounslow, and has been settled since Saxon times. A charter of Henry II gives the name as Hestune, meaning "enclosed settlement", which is justified by its location in what was the Warren of Staines, between the ancient Roman road to Bath, and the Uxbridge Road to Oxford. Another suggested etymology is Anglo-Saxon Hǣs-tūn = "brushwood farmstead".

Before 1229, Heston was part of the parish of Gistleworth (Isleworth) before being taken by Henry III, who subsequently granted it to the Earl of Cornwall. It covered until the late 19th century creation of Hounslow from outlying parts of two adjoining parishes, 3,823 acres (15.47 km²). The close association pre-dates the town of Hounslow, when that was simply Hounslow Priory, the two parishes had long been associated: the medieval manor of Isleworth covered all of that parish and this. After Henry III died in 1316, Heston was owned by the Crown, and later by the wardens of St. Giles Hospital, until it was surrendered to Henry VIII during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Elizabeth I granted Heston to Sir Thomas Gresham, and, after eating some bread made from locally grown wheat, insisted on a supply for her own personal use.

Heston (disambiguation)

Heston may refer to:

See also

Heston (name)

Heston is both an English surname and a given name. Notable people with the name include:

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