The American Economic Association and the economics profession were saddened to learn of the passing of William J. Baumol on Thursday, May 4 at age 95. He was considered among the most influential economists in the world and made significant contributions to research around entrepreneurship and the labor market. He is perhaps best known for developing the idea commonly known as "Baumol's cost disease," a phenomenon in which salaries increase for jobs in which there's been no rise in labor productivity because salaries have increased in other industries in which there have been productivity gains. He was the Harold Price Professor of Entrepreneurship at New York Unviersity's Stern School of Business, academic director of the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and professor emeritus at Princeton University. He was president of the AEA in 1981. To learn more about Baumol and his contributions to the economics profession, see his obituary in The Washington Post and his interview with Alan Krueger that appeared in the Summer 2001 issue of the Journal of Economic Perspectives.