Introduction to the Special Issue

Abstract

This special issue of the Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis is dedicated to the memory of Jerry Ellig, a brilliant economist whose untimely death in 2021 cut short a productive and influential career in government and academia. Jerry was adept at applying economic concepts and empirical analysis to improve public policy, and he enjoyed not only studying real policy problems, but finding practical solutions to them. He was also a generous mentor, supporting and collaborating with graduate students and colleagues to publish prolifically in peer-reviewed economics, public administration, and political science journals, as well as law reviews and more popular outlets. He was a great communicator, able to take his academic work and translate it for different audiences, including through testimony, seminars, op-eds, short presentations, and classroom teaching. In addition to these immense talents, Jerry was genuinely kind and unpretentious; he wore Wal-Mart suits and garish ties. And he was laugh-out-loud funny, a master at diffusing difficult situations with a witty, but never mean, quip.