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Session 10: NABE Outlook
Find out about the latest thinking on the economy from NABE’s panel of macroeconomic forecasters during this presentation by NABE’s vice president. He will also present the eighth annual NABE Outlook Award for the most accurate forecast.
Speaker Materials
Chris Varvares podcast on Bloomberg.com with Tom Keene
Speakers
Ellen Hughes-Cromwick
Ford Motor Company
NABE President
Ellen Hughes-Cromwick is a director and chief economist at Ford Motor Company. She joined Ford in 1996, and now directs the corporate economics group with major responsibility for the company’s global economic and automotive industry forecasts. Prior to joining Ford, she was a senior economist at Mellon Bank from 1990 to 1996, and assistant professor of economics at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, during the late 1980s. She served for two years as a staff economist on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers during the Reagan Administration. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame, a master’s degree in international development, and a PhD in economics at Clark University in Massachusetts. She was recently appointed to the Congressional Budget Office Panel of Economic Advisers.
For the previous four consecutive years, Ellen has served as co-chair of NABE’s Annual March Policy Conference held in Washington, DC.
Chris Varvares
Macroeconomic Advisers
Chris Varvares is President of Macroeconomic Advisers, a company he co-founded with Joel Prakken and Laurence Meyer as Laurence H. Meyer & Associates in 1982. The firm became Macroeconomic Advisers in June of 1996 when Dr. Meyer left the firm to join the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Dr. Meyer returned to the firm in the summer of 2002 following his term at the Fed.
Mr. Varvares has over 25 years of experience in macroeconomic forecasting and policy analysis, both as a principal of Macroeconomic Advisers (1982 to present) and as a member of the staff of the President's Council of Economic Advisers (1981-1982). While at the Council, he served as a member of the U.S. delegation to the OECD in April 1982. Mr. Varvares is the Vice President (9/2007-9/2008) and a former director of the National Association for Business Economics, served as President of the St. Louis chapter, and is a member of the American Economic Association. He serves as a member of Time Magazine’s Board of Economists, is a member of the New York State Economic and Revenue Advisory Board, and has been a panelist for the World Economic Forum.
He and the other principals of Macroeconomic Advisers serve as consultants to key agencies of the U.S., Canadian, Japanese, and U.K. governments, major trade associations, and private corporations and are widely quoted in the business and financial media. The firm is recognized as among the most accurate forecasters of the U.S. economy. A 2006 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta found that Macroeconomic Advisers had the best forecasting track record of any forecaster in the Blue Chip Economic Indicators panel over the 19 years included in the study. The firm also won the 2006 Annual Forecasting Award of the National Association of Business Economics and twice has won the Annual Forecasting Award for the highest forecast accuracy among participants in the Blue Chip Economic Indicators, and would have been the only three-time winner of the award if not for a rule that precluded winning in two consecutive years. Macroeconomic Advisers is also a prominent participant in the debates over the macroeconomic effects of federal budget and tax policy, and monetary policy.
Mr. Varvares holds a B.A. in Economics from The George Washington University and received his graduate training in economics from Washington University in St. Louis.
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