Jason M. Barr is an American economist and author, at Rutgers University-Newark, whose work is in the field of “skynomics,” the study of skyscrapers and skylines using modern economics methods.[1][2][3] He is the author of Building the Skyline: The Birth and Growth of Manhattan’s Skyscrapers which chronicled the history of the Manhattan skyline from an economic perspective.[4][5] Barr earned his B.S. from Cornell University in 1992, his M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Emerson College in 1995 and his Ph.D. in Economics from Columbia University in 2002.[6]
Barr’s work has addressed widely held myths or misconceptions about skyscrapers and cities.[7][8] For example, research performed by Barr and his colleagues showed that there was no evidence for the Skyscraper Curse, that the completion of the world's tallest building is a herald of an economic crisis.[9][10] Barr has also debunked the misconception that Manhattan's geological conditions have been the reason there are few skyscrapers between lower Manhattan and Midtown.[11][12][13][14][15] Rather, Barr's work demonstrates that Midtown's origin was due to the city's demographic evolution and the fact that Manhattan is a long, but narrow, island that concentrated economic activity to a much greater degree, as compared to other cities.[16][17]
