Previous | Session Pages | Next
Session 17: Consumer Sentiment Going Into the Election
3:45-5:00 pm Cook
The economy can contribute significantly to the choices people make in the polling place. Hard statistics only tell part of the story, though; quite often, it is people's perceptions of conditions that bear most heavily on the balloting. Two leading monitors of consumer sentiment will discuss their views of our views as we head toward election day.
Session Downloads
Richard Curtin, Consumer Sentiment In Economic and Political Cycles(paper)
Lynn Franco, Consumer Confidence: It's About Jobs (slides)
Links of Interest
Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index
University of Michigan Survey Research Center
Speakers
Doc J. Miller III
Mellon Private Wealth Management
presiding
Lynn Franco
The Conference Board
Lynn Franco is Director of The Conference Board’s Consumer Research Center. She produces several monthly and quarterly reports that track both general and consumer economic trends, including the widely-followed Consumer Confidence Index. Franco also analyzes and forecasts long-term shifts in the consumer markets.
Franco also directs the Board’s business confidence survey program, and produces the quarterly periodical Business Executives’ Expectations.
She addresses business audiences on economic and demographic trends and is frequently interviewed by the media and quoted in the press.
Franco is a member of the National Association of Business Economists.
She holds an MBA from St. John’s University, and a BA from New York University.
Richard T. Curtin
Director, Surveys of Consumers
Survey Research Center, University of Michigan
Richard T. Curtin has been the Director of the Surveys of Consumers at the Survey Research Center, The University of Michigan, since 1976.
The results from the surveys are widely used by businesses and financial institutions, by federal agencies responsible for monetary and fiscal policies, as well as by academic researchers. Data from the University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers is an official component of the Index of Leading Indicators, designed by the U.S. Department of Commerce and published by the Conference Board. This represents a significant, independent confirmation of the usefulness of the surveys for understanding and forecasting changes in the national economy.
Through frequent presentations and published articles, Dr. Curtin has reported on his research in behavioral economics, including consumer saving and spending behavior, household income and wealth, reactions to changing economic opportunities, and public policy preferences. He is a member of the American Economic Association, the Association for Consumer Research, and the International Association for Research in Economic Psychology. Dr. Curtin received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan in 1975.
