Joseph L. Gastwirth

Joseph L. Gastwirth is an American statistician known for his research on non-parametric and robust statistical methods, measures of economic inequality and discrimination, and statistical methods in law, biostatistics and social science. He is Professor-Emeritus of Statistics and Economics at the George Washington University.

Gastwirth earned his B.S. in mathematics (summa cum laude) from Yale University in 1958.^[1] He completed an M.A. in pure mathematics at Princeton University in 1960.^[1] He received his Ph.D. in mathematical statistics from Columbia University in 1963.^[2][3] His doctoral dissertation was titled On Some Problems in the Theory of Particle Counting and Queues with Infinitely Many Servers, written under the supervision of Professor Lajos Takács.^[1]

After completing his Ph.D. in mathematical statistics at Columbia University in 1963 under the supervision of Lajos Takács,^[4][5] Gastwirth was a Post-doctoral Research Associate in the Department of Statistics at Stanford University from September 1963 to June 1964.^[6]

He then joined the Department of Statistics at Johns Hopkins University, where he served as Assistant Professor from July 1964 to June 1967 and Associate Professor from July 1967 to June 1972.^[7] During this period, he was also a Visiting Associate Professor at Harvard University (1970–1971), and later served as a Visiting Faculty Advisor in the Office of Statistical Policy, Executive Office of the President (1971–1972).^[8][9]

In July 1972, he joined George Washington University as Professor of Statistics and Economics, a position he held until his retirement in January 2024.^[10] Over his tenure at GWU, he also held several visiting and consulting roles with government and academic institutions, including:

• January – June 1979: Visiting Professor of Applied Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.^[11]
• March 1981 – January 1986: Statistical Consultant, Office of Information and Regulatory Analysis, Office of Management and Budget, Washington, D.C.^[12]
• September 1985 – June 1986: Visiting Scholar (Guggenheim Foundation Fellow), University of California, Davis.^[13]
• June 1999 – July 2000: Visiting Scientist, Biostatistics Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland.^[14]

Gastwirth’s work often bridged statistics, economics, and law, focusing on issues of fairness, discrimination, and income inequality. His contributions have influenced policy frameworks, including those of the U.S. Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs.^[15]

Gastwirth’s research has focused on methods for measuring economic inequality, the application of statistics in employment discrimination and jury selection cases, and the use of nonparametric and robust statistical methods in law and social science.^[16][17]

His publications have also been cited in U.S. court opinions, including Allen v. Seidman, 881 F.2d 375 (7th Cir. 1989); Apsley v. Boeing Co., 691 F.3d 1184 (10th Cir. 2012); Chen-Oster et al. v. Goldman, Sachs & Co., 114 F. Supp. 3d 110 (S.D.N.Y. 2015); and Chamberlin v. Fisher, 885 F.3d 832 (5th Cir. 2018).^{[18][19][20][21]}

• Gastwirth, Joseph L. (1988). Statistical Reasoning in Law and Public Policy. Vol. 1: Statistical Concepts and Issues of Fairness. Vol. 2: Tort Law, Evidence, and Health. Orlando, FL: Academic Press. ISBN 0122766803 (Vol. 1); ISBN 0122766811 (Vol. 2).
• Gastwirth, Joseph L., ed. (2000). Statistical Science in the Courtroom. New York: Springer. ISBN 0387986942. doi:10.1007/978-1-4612-1284-3.

• Gastwirth, J. L. (1966). "On Robust Procedures." Journal of the American Statistical Association. 61 (316): 929–948. doi:10.1080/01621459.1966.10482185.
• Chernoff, Herman; Gastwirth, Joseph L.; Johns, Michael V. Jr. (1967). "Asymptotic Distribution of Linear Combinations of Functions of Order Statistics with Application to Estimation." Annals of Mathematical Statistics. 38 (1): 52–72. doi:10.1214/aoms/1177698949.
• Gastwirth, J. L. (1971). "A General Definition of the Lorenz Curve." Econometrica. 39 (6): 1037–1038. doi:10.2307/1912118.
• Gastwirth, J. L. (1972). "Robust Estimation of the Lorenz Curve and Gini Index." Review of Economics and Statistics. 54 (3): 306–316. doi:10.2307/1937992.
• Gail, M.; Gastwirth, J. L. (1978). "A Scale-Free Goodness of Fit Test for the Exponential Distribution Based on the Gini Statistic." Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series B (Methodological). 40 (3): 350–357. JSTOR 2984758.
• Gastwirth, J. L. (1987). "The Statistical Precision of Medical Screening Procedures: Application to Polygraph and AIDS Antibodies Test Data." Statistical Science. 2 (2): 213–238. doi:10.1214/ss/1177013215.
• Gastwirth, J. L.; Greenhouse, S. W. (1995). "Biostatistical Concepts and Methods in the Legal Setting." Statistics in Medicine. 14 (15): 1641–1653. doi:10.1002/sim.4780141505.
• Freidlin, B.; Zheng, G.; Li, Z.; Gastwirth, J. L. (2002). "Trend Tests for Case-Control Studies of Genetic Markers: Power, Sample Size and Robustness." Human Heredity. 53 (3): 146–152. doi:10.1159/000064976.
• Gastwirth, Joseph L.; Gel, Yulia R.; Miao, Weiwen (2009). "The Impact of Levene’s Test of Equality of Variances on Statistical Theory and Practice." Statistical Science. 24 (3): 343–360. doi:10.1214/09-STS301.
• Gastwirth, Joseph L. (2017). "Some Recurrent Problems in Interpreting Statistical Evidence in Equal Employment Cases." Law, Probability and Risk. 16 (4): 181–201. doi:10.1093/lpr/mgx017. Cited by the U.S. Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) in its guidance on practical significance (July 23, 2019) and in its rules and procedures for investigating and resolving discrimination issues, Federal Register, 85 (218), Nov 10 2020.
• Gastwirth, J. L. (2017). "Is the Gini Index of Inequality Overly Sensitive to Changes in the Middle of the Distribution?" Statistics and Public Policy. 4 (1): 1–11. doi:10.1080/2330443X.2017.1360813.
• Gastwirth, J. L.; Miao, W.; Pan, Q. (2022). "On the Practical vs. Statistical Significance Issue in Equal Employment Standards and Cases." Law, Probability and Risk. 21 (1): 69–87. doi:10.1093/lpr/mgac002.

• Elected Fellow of the American Statistical Association (1970).^[22]
• Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.^[23]
• Elected Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics.^[24]
• Elected Member of the International Statistical Institute.^[25]
• Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Statistics (1985).^[26]
• Recipient of the Gottfried E. Noether Award of the American Statistical Association for Contributions to Nonparametric Statistics (2012).^[27]
• Recipient of the Karl E. Peace Award of the American Statistical Association for Outstanding Statistical Contributions for the Betterment of Society (2015).^[28]

• GWU — Joseph Gastwirth profile
• Open Library — Joseph Lewis Gastwirth
• Google Scholar profile