Speakers
Leo Abruzzee
EIU
Leo Abruzzese is responsible for the Economist Intelligence Unit's editorial operations in the Americas. Based in New York, he oversees a team of country analysts and is responsible for EIU's business research projects in the region. He writes regularly on the US economy and leads the EIU's financial services coverage, which provides analysis of conditions in 60 markets.
Leo joined the company in London in 1998 as editor of ViewsWire, the EIU's daily political and economic commentary unit, which he built into a briefing service covering 200 countries for 300,000 business readers. He became Director of Wire Services for the EIU in 2003, with added responsibility for all of the company's daily analysis services. Besides ViewsWire, these included Risk Briefing, an operational risk service; Executive Briefing, which focuses on business and management issues; and Industry Briefing, which covers eight industries across all major economies.
In 2003 Leo was also named Deputy Director of the EIU’s Country Analysis division, where he helped to manage a team of more than 100 analysts who prepare the company’s economic, political and risk forecasts. He served as a macroeconomic analyst in the EIU’s Asia team, preparing reports on Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, and traveled extensively in the region. In 2004-05, he was the company’s chief economic analyst for India.
As Director of Financial Services, Leo is responsible for the company's analysis of banking and related activities worldwide and writes the EIU's quarterly outlook on the global financial services industry. He also oversees the company's Financial Services Briefing website.
Before returning to the EIU in mid-2006, Leo spent a year as lead editor for coverage of the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury at Bloomberg News LP in Washington. He guided the company's analysis of former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and the arrival of the current chairman, Ben S. Bernanke. He also supervised coverage of US international economic policy, including disputes with China over trade and currency issues.
Leo has been responsible for editing many of the Economist Intelligence Unit's special reports, including analysis of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the US invasion of Iraq, the Asian tsunami and the move towards democracy in the Middle East. He constructed a political democracy model as part of that last project.
Before joining the EIU in 1998, Leo was Washington Bureau Chief and Editorial Director of The Journal of Commerce, a daily business newspaper covering international trade and business. He wrote regular commentaries during the 1990s on most of the major economic and financial issues of the day, including European economic integration, the Mexican and Asian financial crises and the Uruguay Round of global trade talks. He lived and worked in Washington for many years and covered economic issues before Congress and many government agencies.
Leo has a B.A. in liberal arts from St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia, and has participated in European research programs sponsored by New York University and the German Marshall Fund. He has written for Aspen Institute publications and been interviewed by the BBC and CNN. He has presented the Economist Intelligence Unit's global economic and political forecasts throughout the US, Europe and the Americas.
Martin Neil Baily
Brookings Institution
Martin Baily, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton administration (1999–2001) and one of three members of the council from 1994 to 1996, focuses on issues of globalization, productivity and competitiveness, Social Security reform, and U.S. economic policy at the Brookings Institution.
Martin Baily re-joined Brookings in September 2007 to develop a program of research on business and the economy. He is studying issues of productivity, technology, globalization and trade and exploring the impact of new technologies on the economy.
Dr. Baily is also a Senior Advisor to McKinsey & Company, assisting the McKinsey Global Institute on projects on globalization and productivity. He is an economic adviser to the Congressional Budget Office and a Director of The Phoenix Companies of Hartford CT.
Prior to his return to Brookings, Baily was a Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. His book Transforming the European Economy was published by the Institute in 2004. In August 1999, Dr. Baily was appointed as Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. As Chairman, Dr. Baily served as economic adviser to the President, was a member of the President’s Cabinet and directed the staff of this White House agency. He completed his term as Chairman on January 19, 2001. During that period he also served as President of the Economic Policy Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Dr. Baily previously served as one of the three Members of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers from October 1994 until August 1996.
Dr. Baily was a Principal at McKinsey & Company at the Global Institute in Washington, D. C. from September 1996 to July 1999. He was also a visiting fellow at the Global Institute l993-1994. Dr. Baily helped lead project teams using industry case studies to explore service and manufacturing productivity and employment, as well as a series of country studies, looking at France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, Brazil, Korea and Russia. Dr. Baily has also worked with McKinsey client teams, providing counseling to CEO’s on economic issues.
Dr. Baily earned his Ph.D. in economics in 1972 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After teaching at MIT and Yale, he became a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in 1979 and a Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland in 1989. His research has focused on wage setting, macroeconomic policy, innovation, productivity and economic growth.
He has served as an academic advisor to the Federal Reserve Board and testified numerous times before Congress. He served on a panel convened by the Office of Technology Assessment and was the Vice-Chairman of a panel of the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council to investigate the effect of computers on productivity. He was a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is the author of many professional articles, and the co-author or editor of five books.
Nariman Behravesh
Exec VP and Chief Economist,
IHS Global Insight
Dr. Nariman Behravesh is Chief Economist and Executive Vice President for Global Insight (formerly DRI-WEFA). Directing Global Insight's entire forecasting process, he is responsible for developing the economic outlook and risk analysis for the United States, Europe, Japan, and emerging markets. He oversees the work of over 200 professionals, located in North America and Europe, who cover economic, financial, and political developments in over 180 countries.
Behravesh and his team were designated #1 in USA Today's 2004 ranking of top economic forecasters, and in Reuters' 2004 survey of major currency exchange rate forecasters. In The Wall Street Journal's annual ranking of US forecasters, Behravesh was the only forecaster to place in the top six for both 2003 and 2004.
As Global Insight's chief spokesperson, Behravesh is quoted extensively in the media on such topics as the outlook for the US and global economies, oil prices, exchange rates, the budget deficit, the trade deficit, globalization, country risk, and emerging markets crises. He is cited frequently in leading business publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Financial Times, USA Today, Investor's Business Daily, Business Week, Newsweek, Fortune, Forbes and U.S. News and World Report. He also regularly appears on national radio and television programs including BBC World Business Report, NBC Nightly News, CNN Headline News, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (PBS), Your World with Neil Cavuto (Fox News), CNBC's Closing Bell, Bloomberg TV's World Financial Report, and All Things Considered on National Public Radio.
Behravesh was the host of the PBS television series "Inside the Global Economy." He has authored numerous articles in such publications as European Affairs and Credit Week, co-authored two books– Economics U$A and Microcomputers, Corporate Planning and Decision Support Systems–and was a contributing author to a recent book on scenario analysis, entitled Learning From the Future.
Before joining Global Insight, Behravesh was chief international economist for Standard & Poor's. Prior to that, he was president and CEO of Oxford Economics U.S.A., Inc. He also spent ten years at the WEFA Group, where he held a number of positions, including group senior vice president. Early in his career Behravesh worked at the Congressional Budget Office and the Federal Reserve.
Behravesh holds Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in economics from the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.Sc. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has lived in Europe and the Middle East, and is fluent in several languages. He travels extensively to Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Bryan Bezold
Ameren
Adrian Blundell-Wignall
Deputy Director, Financial and Enterprise Affairs, OECD
Deputy Director for Financial and Enterprise Affairs (DAF) at the OECD; effective from14th February 2007; Chairman and portfolio manager for The Anika Foundation
Senior Positions: 2002 Citigroup (Australia, Ltd) Director, Head of Equity Strategy Research. 2000 Executive Vice President, Head of Asset Allocation, BT Funds Management. 1993 Head of Derivative Overlays and Levered Products at Bankers Trust Funds Management, building a new $4 billion business. 1991 Head of the Research Department at the Reserve Bank of Australia: directing a department and participating in monetary policy discussions at the internal pre-Board meetings.
Early Career: Economist positions in: the OECD Economics Department, the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Economic Planning Advisory Council of Australia.
Education: 1st class Honours degree and PhD in Economics from Cambridge University, UK.
Publications: Extensive publications on financial markets and monetary policy in learned journals and books, as well as broker analyst studies and reports.
Most Important Achievement: Founder and Chairman of The Anika Foundation, a rapidly growing and high profile charity which provides education research scholarships in the area of adolescent mental health, depression awareness and suicide.
Rick Bookstaber
Author of A Demon of Our Own Design
Rich Brown
FDIC
James Bullard
President, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
James Bullard took office as president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis on April 1, 2008. He directs the activities of the Bank's head office in St. Louis as well as its three branches in Little Rock, Ark., Louisville, Ky. and Memphis, Tenn. In addition, he represents the Bank on the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the Federal Reserve's chief monetary policymaking body.
The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, one of 12 regional Reserve banks, along with the Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., constitute the Federal Reserve System. As the nation's central bank, the Fed is responsible for conducting monetary policy, supervising banks and operating the nation's payment system.
Dr. Bullard joined the Research division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in 1990, and held increasingly responsible positions in the division. Prior to being appointed president, he was deputy director of research for monetary analysis.
A native of Forest Lake, Minn., Dr. Bullard holds a Bachelor of Science degree in quantitative methods and information systems and economics from St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minn., and a doctorate in economics from Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind.
Dr. Bullard has written numerous scholarly papers published in professional journals and has been a peer reviewer for over two dozen periodicals or institutions. He has participated in over 150 conferences, symposia or lectures sponsored by foreign central banks, academic institutions and monetary policy groups around the world.
Dr. Bullard enjoys bicycling and tennis. He is married to Jane Callahan; they have two daughters.
John Caldwell
Edison Electric Institute
Dr. John Caldwell is Director of Economics at the Edison Electric Institute. He has worked in the electric and gas utility industry for over twenty years, first at the Illinois Power Company (now part of Ameren) as a planning engineer, and then at NiSource, where he was involved in the development of long-term forecast models for energy use and peak demand, the introduction of innovative alternative rate designs, such as negotiated rate, fixed price, and fixed bill products, and the implementation of financial hedging strategies and risk management systems to support these products. Both within NiSource and for its customers, John regularly gave seminars and training presentations on rate design and deregulation. He authored a monthly “Fuel Price Outlook” with commentary and projections on the energy industry on his company’s website, and participated in periodic regional workshops to share his views on the market and future price trends. While at NiSource, John also authored, narrated, and produced a sixteen-part history documentary for a local public radio station entitled “Larger than Life”. At EEI, he and his staff have been examining and reporting on the interrelationship of the economy with energy demand and pricing. He has a B.S. in electrical engineering (University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana), an MBA (University of Illinois, Springfield), an M.S. in mathematics (University of Iowa), and a Ph.D. in economics (University of Illinois, Chicago).
Marc Cenedella
Founder and CEO, TheLadders.com
Marc Cenedella is the Founder of TheLadders.com, the #1 source for $100k+ jobs in the world.
Marc started TheLadders.com in July of 2003 to solve a puzzling gap in the world of online recruitment and high-end employment. As the Senior Vice President of Finance and Operations at HotJobs.com, Marc saw that, while large job boards worked well for entry and mid-level candidates, high-level job searches were not being conducted efficiently online. Job seekers were frustrated, while recruiters often elected not to post their executive opportunities online at all.
Marc's solution to this dilemma was a reverse business model that catered to the high-end job seeker. After orchestrating the $436 million sale of HotJobs.com to Yahoo!, Marc started SalesLadder.com, the first in the family of industry-focused websites exclusive to the $100k+ job market. The site was immediately embraced and appreciated by job seekers and recruiters alike for its unique approach and laser focus.
Today, TheLadders.com posts over 8,000 new jobs a week through eight specially-targeted sites geared to experienced industry professionals and the recruiters and employers looking to hire them.
Prior to founding TheLadders.com and his role as HotJobs.com, Marc was an Associate Vice President at The Riverside Company, a New York-based private equity firm. Earlier in his career, he founded, grew and then sold an international trading company focused on the export of US-made pet food to Japan. From that experience, he gained a great appreciation for Japan's emphasis on superior customer service - learning that he's now applied to TheLadders.com. TheLadders.com has become a model for great service, both online and off.
Marc holds an MBA with high distinction from Harvard Business School, where he was named a Baker Scholar. He earned his B.A. in political science at Yale.
Robert Crow
National Association for Business Economics
David Crowe
National Association of Home Builders
David Crowe, Ph.D., is Chief Economist and Senior Vice President at the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). Dr. Crowe is responsible for NAHB’s forecast of housing and economic trends, survey research and analysis of the home building industry and consumer preferences as well as microeconomic analysis of government policies that affect housing.
Dr. Crowe is also responsible for the development and implementation of an innovative model of the local economic impact and fiscal cost of new home construction, which has estimated the net impact of new housing in over 500 local markets. Past research has concentrated on home ownership trends, tax issues, demographics, government mortgage insurance, local land use ordinance impacts and the impacts of housing on local economies.
Before becoming NAHB’s Chief Economist, Dr. Crowe was NAHB’s Senior Vice President for Regulatory and Housing Policy. Prior to NAHB, Dr. Crowe was Deputy Director of the Division of Housing and Demographic Analysis at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
He has served on federal advisory committees to the Census Bureau and to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Dr. Crowe holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Kentucky.
Rogelio Ramirez de la O
Ecanal
James Fine
Economist and Policy Scientist, Environmental Defense Fund
James "Jamie" Fine is an economist and policy scientist working on state-based initiatives to address global warming.
His areas of research and advocacy include design and implementation of cap-and-trade and other market-based policy, modeling the economic, air quality, and health risks of policy decisions, and facilitating the meaningful involvement of public stakeholders in environmental planning.
He has a Ph.D.from the University of California at Berkeley, Energy and Resources Group, 2003, and a B.S., University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, 1989.
Robert Frank
Cornell University/
NY Times columnist
Professor Frank is a monthly contributor to the "Economic Scene" column in The New York Times. Until 2001, he was the Goldwin Smith Professor of Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy in Cornell's College of Arts and Sciences. He has also served as a Peace Corps volunteer in rural Nepal, chief economist for the Civil Aeronautics Board, fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and was Professor of American Civilization at l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. Frank's books include Choosing the Right Pond, Passions within Reason, Microeconomics and Behavior, Luxury Fever, and What Price the Moral High Ground? The Winner-Take-All Society, co-authored with Philip Cook, was named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times, and was included in Business Week's list of the ten best books for 1995. Frank holds a BS in mathematics from the Georgia Institute of Technology, an MA in statistics from UC Berkeley and a PhD in economics, also from UC Berkeley.
Tripp Frohlichstein
MediaMasters, Inc.
Tripp Frohlichstein founded MediaMasters, Inc. in 1986 after spending more than a decade at KMOX-TV, the then CBS-owned and operated station in St. Louis. During that period, Frohlichstein acted in various newsroom management capacities, culminating with assistant news director.
With MediaMasters, Frohlichstein has traveled throughout the United States, Canada and Europe to train thousands of people in corporations, associations, government and non-profit organizations on how to work with the media, how to handle crises, how to give presentations and how to communicate more effectively.
In addition, Frohlichstein served as a TV news critic for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and for the St. Louis Journalism Review and was an adjunct professor in the Webster University Media Department for twenty years. Frohlichstein also acted as television critic for KMOX-CBS radio from 1987 through early 1996.
Gary Gorton
Yale School of Management
Gary B. Gorton is The Frederick Frank Class of 1954 Professor of Finance at the Yale School of Management, which he joined in August 2008. Prior to that he was the Robert Morris Professor of Banking and Finance at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he taught for 24 years. He was also Professor of Economics in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is a former member of the Moody’s Investors Services Academic Advisory Panel, a former Director of the Research Program on Banks and the Economy for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. He has taught at the Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago, and previously worked as an economist and senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. During 1994 he was the Houblon-Norman Fellow at the Bank of England.
Dr. Gorton has done research in many areas of finance, including both theoretical and empirical work. Specific research has focused on the role of stock markets and banks, credit cycles, arbitrage pricing, commodity futures, bank capital, bank production of liquidity, loan sales, securitization, bank loan pricing, and bank regulation. Dr. Gorton also works on corporate control issues and asset pricing theory, including models of asset price bubbles and game theoretic models of trading and asset pricing. His research has been published in the American Economic Review, the Review of Economic Studies, the Review of Financial Studies, the Journal of Economic Theory, the Journal of Political Economy, the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Monetary Economics, the Journal of Business, and the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, among other places.
Dr. Gorton is a member of the American Finance Association, the American Economic Association, and the Econometric Society. He was an editor of the Review of Economic Studies and the Review of Financial Studies. He is now, or has been in the past, on the editorial boards of many journals including Journal of Financial Services Research, the Journal of Financial Intermediation, the Journal of Financial Markets, the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, Advances in International Banking and Finance, Finance Letters, and the Economic Policy Review (of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York). He is the former editor of the Review of Financial Studies and a former director of the Western Finance Association.
Dr. Gorton has consulted for the U.S. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, various U.S. Federal Reserve Banks, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, and the Central Bank of Turkey. He has also consulted for a number of private firms.
Dr. Gorton received his doctorate in Economics from the University of Rochester. In the field of Economics, he received Master's degrees in economics at the University of Rochester and Cleveland State University, and also received a Master's degree in Chinese Studies from the University of Michigan.
Dan Hamilton
Center for Economic Research and Forecasting, California Lutheran Univesity
Dan Hamilton obtained a B.S. in Agricultural Economics from U.C. Davis in 1990 and a Ph.D. in Economics from U.C. Santa Barbara in 2002. From 1995 to 2004, Dan taught a variety of courses in macroeconomic theory, econometrics, and business forecasting at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
He began working with Economic Forecast models in 1997 with the Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates (WEFA Group). For three years with the WEFA Group, (now known as Global Insight), Hamilton produced forecasts and generated alternate scenarios. In 2000, Dan joined the UCSB Economic Forecast Project where he built and maintained a variety of forecast models in Eviews, including models of the United States, California, and Oregon.
In June 2009, Dan Hamilton took part in forming a new Economic Forecast center at California Lutheran University (CLU). This is the Center for Economic Research and Forecasting at CLU, or CERF. They also formed a new M.S. in Economics program that will focus on teaching the applied tools for Economic Forecasting.
Maurine Haver
Haver Analytics
Maurine is President and founder of Haver Analytics Inc., an economic consulting and information services company. Prior to starting Haver Analytics in 1978, she was an economist in the economic forecasting group of General Electric in New York, a member of the International Staff of Companie Bull General Electric in Paris and a consultant in the Foreign Currency Exposure Management Group of the Chase Manhattan Bank in London.
Maurine served as President of the National Association of Business Economists (1994-95). She has served as secretary of the Forecasters Club of New York since 1992. She is a past president of the New York Association for Business Economics (1989-90), the Downtown Economists Club (1993-94) and the Money Marketeers of New York University (1998-99). She chaired the board of the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics (COPAFS) during 2001-2003. She currently serves on the board of Mutual of America and is a member of the American Economic Association, the American Statistical Association and the National Economists Club.
Maurine holds a B.S. in Economics and Mathematics from Michigan State University, an M.B.A. from the Stern School of New York University and completed her oral exam for a PhD in International Economics at NYU.
Cecilia Hermansson
Swedbank
Cecilia Hermansson is Chief Economist at Swedbank, and has been with the bank since 1999. Before that she held a position as director in Sweden's Ministry of Finance. She started her career after graduating from Stockholm School of Economics with international assignments, joining the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Sida. She worked in Nairobi 1992-95 at the Swedish Embassy. In addition to the work at Swedbank, Cecilia Hermansson is currently doing research at the Centre for Banking and Finance, which is part of the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.
Richard Herring
Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania
Richard J. Herring is Jacob Safra Professor of International Banking and Professor of Finance at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania where he is also founding director of The Wharton Financial Institutions Center, one of Wharton’s largest research centers. From 2000 to 2006, he served as the Director of the Lauder Institute of International Management Studies and from 1995 to 2000, he served as Vice Dean and Director of Wharton’s Undergraduate Division. During 2006, he was a Professorial Fellow at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and Victoria University and during 2009 he was the Metzler Bank Fellow at Johann Goethe University in Frankfurt.
He is the author of more than 100 articles, monographs and books on various topics in financial regulation, international banking and international finance. At various times his research has been funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Brookings Institution, the Sloan Foundation and the Council on Foreign Relations.
Outside the university, he is co-chair of the US Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee and Executive Director of the Financial Economist’s Roundtable, the Advisory Board of the European Banking Report in Rome and the Institute for Financial Studies in Frankfurt. He served as co-chair of the Multinational Banking seminar from 1992–2004 and was a Fellow of the World Economic Forum in Davos from 1992–95. He was a member of the Group of 30 task force on the reinsurance industry and as well as an earlier study group on international supervision and regulation. Currently, he is an independent director of the DWS mutual fund complex and has served on the predecessor Deutsche Asset Management and Bankers Trust boards since 1990. He is also an independent director of the Daiwa closed end funds.
Herring received his undergraduate degree from Oberlin College in 1968 and his PhD from Princeton University in 1973. He has been a member of the Finance Department since 1972. He is married, with two children, and lives in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.
Paul Hughes-Cromwick
Altarum Institute
Paul Hughes-Cromwick is a health economist with over 20 years of experience serving state, federal government, and private-sector clients. For the past 7 years he has been a senior analyst at the nonprofit health systems research Altarum Institute. Until its sale in 2007, he was Chairman of the Board of Care Choices, HMO, Farmington Hills, MI; he currently sits on the Board of St. Joseph Mercy Oakland Hospital in Pontiac, MI. He is working to develop health determinants models and innovative care delivery analytics. He has a B.S. in mathematics from the University of Notre Dame, and an M.A. in Applied Economics from Clark University.
Candice Flor Hynek
Milken Institute
Candice Flor Hynek is a Senior Research Analyst with the Milken Institute’s Center for Regional Economics group. She was Associate Economist of the LAEDC Kyser Center for Economic Research, where she worked for over eight years and specialized on the structure of leading industries in Southern California. She managed the Kyser Center’s major economic reports and served as editor of e-EDGE economic newsletter. She co-authored numerous reports including The Business of Sports in Los Angeles County, The Creative Economy of the Los Angeles Region, and most recently Manufacturing 2.0: A More Prosperous California. In addition, she contributed U.S. economic outlook articles in several industry newsletters. Flor Hynek is a member of the National Association for Business Economics (NABE) and is the 2008-2009 President of the Los Angeles Chapter of NABE. She received her B.A. in Business Economics from the California State University-Long Beach.
Rani Isaac
State Library, California Research Bureau
Rani (pronounced Ronnie) has been publishing a series of reports called California Foreclosure Watch for the California State Legislature’s Assembly Banking & Finance Committee. In theses reports, she has provided macroeconomic analysis on the housing and banking crisis. In addition, she has made several formal presentations about how job losses must end and home prices must stabilize for the cycle to bottom out.
Rani started working for the State of California in October of 2005 as an economist and researcher. Prior to coming to CA, she worked for the National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB) in Washington DC. She contributed to revenues of $300,000 by writing and editing articles for a subscription-based NAHB publication Housing Economics Online and was instrumental in the conversion from three separate paper journals to web-based products.
She has also served in many levels of government:
· as demographer/economist for a COG (Council of Governments)
· as a consultant and economist for two branches of the federal government that were conducting socioeconomic analysis as required in decennial master plans for forests and Bureau of Land Management public land.
· as the top economist for the Executive Branch for the State of Colorado, where she worked five years with employment, population, income and revenue forecasts, as well as legislation.
· as a researcher and economist for California’s Franchise Tax Board.
Rani started her career in the private sector working in economics for five years at McGraw-Hill in its New York City Headquarters, working as a forecaster for two construction publications. She worked with economists at DRI (now Global Insights) to produce construction forecasts.
She holds a Master of International Management (International MBA) degree from the University of Denver.
She has been a member of the National Association for Business Economics since 1993 and was President of the Sacramento chapter in 2008. She served two years as an officer in the Sacramento Economics Roundtable (SERT) and three years as Treasurer and Vice President of the Denver chapter.
Parul Jain
MacroFin Analytics
David Johnson
U.S. Census Bureau
Martins Kazaks
Swedbank, Latvia
Thomas Klier
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Thomas H. Klier is a senior economist in the economic research department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Klier’s research focuses on the effects of changes in manufacturing technology, the spatial distribution of economic activity and regional economic development. Since joining the Chicago Fed in 1992, Klier has written widely on the evolving geography of the auto industry. His current research includes the changing structure of the auto industry and the responsiveness of the demand for new vehicles to the price of gasoline.
Klier’s research has been published in scholarly journals, including the Journal of Regional Studies, the Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, The Industrial Geographer, Economic Development Quarterly, the Review of Regional Studies, Journal of Environmental Planning and Management and Public Choice. Klier is co-author of a book on the auto supplier industry (joint with Jim Rubenstein, Miami University), published by the Upjohn Institute in 2008.
Klier received an M.B.A. from Friedrich-Alexander-Universitaet Erlangen-Nuernberg, Germany, an M.A. from Wayne State University and a Ph.D. in economics from Michigan State University.
Donald Kohn
Vice Chairman, Federal Reserve Board
Donald L. Kohn originally took office on August 5, 2002, as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System for a full term ending January 31, 2016. On June 23, 2006, Dr. Kohn was sworn in as Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System for a four-year term ending June 23, 2010.
Dr. Kohn was born in November 1942 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He received a B.A. in economics in 1964 from the College of Wooster and a Ph.D. in economics in 1971 from the University of Michigan.
Dr. Kohn is a veteran of the Federal Reserve System. Before becoming a member of the Board, he served on its staff as Adviser to the Board for Monetary Policy (2001-02), Secretary of the Federal Open Market Committee (1987-2002), Director of the Division of Monetary Affairs (1987-2001), and Deputy Staff Director for Monetary and Financial Policy (1983-87). He also held several positions in the Board's Division of Research and Statistics: Associate Director (1981-83), Chief of Capital Markets (1978-81), and Economist (1975-78). Dr. Kohn began his career as a Financial Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City (1970-75).
Dr. Kohn has written extensively on issues related to monetary policy and its implementation by the Federal Reserve. These works were published in volumes issued by various organizations, including the Federal Reserve System, the Bank of England, the Reserve Bank of Australia, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of Korea, the National Bureau of Economic Research, and the Brookings Institution.
He was awarded the Distinguished Achievement Award from The Money Marketeers of New York University (2002), the Distinguished Alumni Award from the College of Wooster (1998), and the Honorary Degree, Doctor of Laws, from the College of Wooster (2006).
Dr. Kohn is the Chairman of the Committee on the Global Financial System (CGFS), a central bank panel that monitors and examines broad issues related to financial markets and systems.
Dr. Kohn is married and has two adult children and four grandchildren.
Alan B. Krueger
U.S. Treasury Department
Alan B. Krueger was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy and Chief Economist for the U.S. Department of Treasury on May 6, 2009. He advises the Secretary on all aspects of economic policy, including current and prospective macroeconomic developments and the development and analysis of the Administration’s economic initiatives. He is currently on leave from Princeton University where he is the Bendheim Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University, where he has held a joint appointment in the Economics Department and the Woodrow Wilson School since 1987. In 1994-95 Mr. Krueger served as chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor. Mr. Krueger has published widely on the economics of education, unemployment, income distribution, social insurance, regulation, terrorism, interest rates and the environment. He has been a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a member of the editorial board of Science, and has served as chief economist for the Council for Economic Education. He is the author of What Makes A Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism and Education Matters: A Selection of Essays on Education, and co-author of Myth and Measurement: The New Economics of the Minimum Wage and of Inequality in America: What Role for Human Capital Policies?
Prior to assuming his current position, Mr. Krueger was a member of the Board of Directors of the Russell Sage Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation and the American Institutes for Research. He was named a Sloan Fellow in Economics in 1992 and an NBER Olin Fellow in 1989-90. He was elected a Fellow of the Econometric Society in 1996, a Fellow of the Society of Labor Economists in 2005 and a member of the Executive Committee of the American Economic Association in 2004. He was awarded the Kershaw Prize by the Association for Public Policy and Management in 1997 (for distinguished contributions to public policy analysis by someone under the age of 40) and the Mahalanobis Memorial Medal by the Indian Econometric Society in 2001. In 2002 he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and in 2003 he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. He was awarded the IZA Prize in Labor Economics with David Card in 2006. From March 2000 to February 2009 he was a regular contributor to the "Economic Scene" and Economix blog in The New York Times.
Mr. Krueger received a B.S. degree, with honors, from Cornell University’s School of Industrial & Labor Relations in 1983, an A.M. in Economics from Harvard University in 1985, and a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1987. He is married to Lisa Simon Krueger and they have two teenage children, Benjamin and Sydney.
Kenneth Kuttner
Williams College
Ken Kuttner is a professor of economics at Williams College, and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Mr. Kuttner has published numerous articles in the fields of macroeconomics, monetary policy, and financial economics. His research has addressed such issues as the roles of monetary aggregates and interest rates in monetary policy, inflation targeting, methods for estimating potential output, the Japanese economy, and financial markets’ reaction to shifts in Federal Reserve policy. An internationally recognized authority on monetary policy issues, Mr. Kuttner is a frequent speaker in academic and policy forums, and he has been a visiting scholar at the central banks of Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Japan, and Portugal. He is also affiliated with the Center on Japanese Economy and Business at Columbia Business School, and with the Centre for Finance and Credit Markets at the University of Nottingham.
Notable publications by Mr. Kuttner’s include: “What Explains the Stock Market’s Reaction to Federal Reserve Policy (with Ben Bernanke), Journal of Finance (2005); “The Great Recession: Lessons for Macroeconomic Policy from Japan” (with Adam Posen), Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (2001); “Monetary Policy Surprises and Interest Rates: Evidence from the Fed funds Futures Market,” Journal of Monetary Economics (2001); and “Are There Bank Effects in Borrowers’ Cost of Funds? Evidence from a Matched Sample of Borrowers and Banks” (with Glenn Hubbard and Darius Palia), Journal of Business (2002). His work has also appeared in the American Economic Review, Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Regional Science, Journal of Futures Markets, Journal of Econometrics, North American Journal of Economics and Finance, and International Journal of Finance and Economics. Mr. Kuttner currently serves as an associate editor of the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking.
Prior to joining the Williams faculty, Mr. Kuttner was the Danforth-Lewis Professor of Economics at Oberlin College. He has held nonacademic positions as Assistant Vice President in the research departments of the Federal Reserve Banks of New York and Chicago, where he specialized in the analysis of monetary policy issues. Mr. Kuttner’s other academic experience includes positions as a visiting professor at Columbia Business School, the New Economic School in Moscow, and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He has also served as an adjunct professor at New York University, Columbia Business School, the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago, and DePaul University. He earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1989, and an A.B. degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1982.
Kirk Lesh
Center for Economic Research and Forecasting, California Lutheran Univesity
Kirk M. Lesh, M.B.A., is a Senior Economist at the Center for Economic Research and Forecasting (CERF) at California Lutheran University. In addition to his work at CERF, Mr. Lesh is finishing his Ph.D. dissertation at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Mr. Lesh earned his M.B.A. from the University of California, Irvine in 2000 and holds undergraduate degrees in Finance and Economics from the University of Colorado, Boulder.
At CLU Mr. Lesh spends his time consulting for Santa Barbara County and NAI Capital, Inc. In the fall he will begin teaching in the new M.S. Economics program. Mr. Lesh also teaches several undergraduate classes at CLU.
Prior to his work at CLU Mr. Lesh was the Real Estate Economist at the Economic Forecast Project at UCSB where he prepared and presented annual real estate forecasts for several communities in Central California. Additionally, Mr. Lesh served as a consultant on several large, community orientated projects.
His work at CLU and UCSB has given Mr. Lesh the opportunity to speak at numerous seminars throughout California. He often quoted in local newspapers and has been the keynote speaker at several events.
Before he entered the Ph.D program Mr. Lesh worked as a Manager of Finance for several companies in Orange County. In these various roles Mr. Lesh helped integrate two billion dollar companies, created a financial reporting system and secured a second public offering.
Gad Levanon
The Conference Board
Stuart Mackintosh
The Group of Thirty
George Magliano
Director, North American Automotive Research, IHS Global Insight
George Magliano is responsible for overseeing Global Insight’s North and South American Automotive Forecasting Services, as well as the U.S. Regional Light-Vehicle Forecasting Services and related project work. He has focused on the automotive industry since 1989, when he joined Economic Consulting and Planning (ECAP) as director of Consumer Research.
Magliano became director of Automotive Research when ECAP was acquired by WEFA, Inc. several years later. For WEFA, he supervised all global automotive research, primarily specializing in forecasting North American vehicle sales and production, as well as many Asian countries. Magliano also has developed models of international trade flows for vehicles and parts and conducted studies of the U.S. aftermarket. In addition, he has directed studies involving customer segmentation, price elasticity, and the outlook under alternative forecast scenarios.
Prior to joining ECAP and WEFA, Magliano was the senior corporate economist for J.P. Stevens, one of the world's largest manufacturers of textiles. While there, he was responsible for all economic and industry forecasting and assisted in the development of the annual corporate business plan.
Magliano was educated at St. Francis Collage (Bachelor of Arts) and Fordham University (Mastr of Arts). He is also a member of the National Association of Business Economists, New York Association of Business Economists, and the Society of Automotive Analysts.
Steven B. Miller
Express Scripts
Dr. Miller joined Express Scripts in 2005. During his first year with the company, he made substantial contributions to reinforcing the model of generic and low-cost brand promotion, helping Express Scripts achieve one of its most profitable years ever. In his current role, Dr. Miller continues to assist millions of Express Scripts patients save billions of dollars, while improving their health.
As senior vice president, chief medical officer, Dr. Miller performs the following tasks:
· Provides medical oversight for Express Scripts and CuraScript, including the rapidly growing field of specialty pharmacy
· Represents and fosters clinical research as an Express Scripts cornerstone
· Promotes electronic prescribing and serves a SureScripts-RxHub board member
· Drives development of new products and services to support our mission of making prescription drugs safer and more affordable
Richard Peach
Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Richard W. Peach is a vice president in the Macroeconomic and Monetary Studies Function at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. His primary responsibility is to coordinate the bank’s forecast for the U.S. economy and the federal budget. He provides regular briefings to the Bank’s president and senior staff and frequently represents the Bank before outside groups. In addition, Mr. Peach follows with particular emphasis the housing and real estate finance sectors. He is a regular contributor to Bank publications such as the Economic Policy Review and the Current Issues series.
Mr. Peach joined the Bank in June 1992 as a senior economist assigned to the Business Conditions Function. In May 1994, he was appointed an officer of the bank and in December 1996 Mr. Peach was promoted to assistant vice president. In June 1998 he was promoted to vice president.
Prior to joining the Bank, he was staff vice president and deputy chief economist of the Mortgage Bankers Association of America (MBAA). In that position he co-authored the MBA’s monthly Economic Commentary, conducted surveys and studies of the mortgage banking industry, and prepared analyses of the impact of changes in public policy on the housing and real estate finance industries. Mr. Peach played a key role in the development of MBA’s Weekly Survey of Mortgage Loan Applications, a closely watched indicator of conditions in housing and mortgage markets.
Prior to joining the MBA in 1986, he was staff vice president for Forecasting and Policy Analysis of the National Association of Realtors (NAR). In that position he prepared NAR’s monthly Outlook for the Economy and Real Estate and conducted studies of the impact of changes in tax law on commercial and owner-occupied real estate. He also served as an economist with the Bureau of Economic Analysis of the U.S. Department of Commerce and was an instructor of economics at the University of Maryland.
Mr. Peach graduated summa cum laude and with Honors in Economics from the Pennsylvania State University in 1973. He was awarded a University of Maryland Fellowship for Graduate Study and earned a Master of Arts degree in 1979 and a Doctorate in economics in 1983 from that institution. He and his wife Beverly have three daughters and reside in Fanwood, New Jersey.
William Peck
Center for Health Policy, Washington University
Peck, former dean of the School of Medicine, directs the University's Center for Health Policy. Revolutionary scientific advances promise great improvements in the prevention and diagnosis of disease and the treatment of patients. But major obstacles must be overcome before this enormous potential can be realized. Barriers include: disparities in access to care and insurance, rising costs, fragmented organization, shortages in the workforce, and inefficiencies and errors in the provision of medical services. Identifying effective solutions is among the most important and difficult tasks facing the country and constitutes the work of the Washington University Center for Health Policy.
William Poole
CATO Institute
William Poole is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, Senior Advisor to Merk Investments and, as of fall 2008, Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the University of Delaware.
Prior to joining Cato, Poole was the president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. He directed the activities of the bank's head office in St. Louis, as well as its three branches in Little Rock, Ark., Louisville, Ky., and Memphis, Tenn. In addition, he represented the Bank on the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the Federal Reserve's chief monetary policymaking body.
Before that, Poole was Herbert H. Goldberger Professor of Economics at Brown University. He served on the Brown faculty from 1974 to 1998 and the faculty of The Johns Hopkins University from 1963 to 1969. Between these two university positions, he was senior economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington. He was a member of the Council of Economic Advisers in the first Reagan administration, from 1982 to 1985.
Poole has engaged in a wide range of professional activities, including publishing numerous papers in professional journals. He has published two books, Money and the Economy: A Monetarist View, in 1978, and Principles of Economics, in 1991. During his 10 years at the St. Louis Fed, he gave over 150 speeches on a variety of topics. In 1980-81, he was a visiting economist at the Reserve Bank of Australia and in 1991, Bank Mees and Hope Visiting Professor of Economics at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. At various times, he served on advisory boards of the Federal Reserve Banks of Boston and New York, and the Congressional Budget Office.
Poole attended Swarthmore College, receiving an AB degree in 1959. He received MBA and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago in 1963 and 1966, respectively. Swarthmore honored him with a Doctor of Laws degree in 1989.
Joel Prakken
Macroeconomic Advisers
In 1982, Dr. Prakken teamed with Chris Varvares and Laurence Meyer to found the economic consulting firm of Laurence H. Meyer & Associates, Ltd. In June of 1996, when Dr. Meyer assumed a position on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the firm was renamed Macroeconomic Advisers and Dr. Prakken became its new Chairman.
Dr. Prakken completed his undergraduate degree in economics at Princeton University, and he holds a Ph.D. in economics from Washington University in Saint Louis. Prior to founding Macroeconomic Advisers, he held the position of Senior Economist at the World Headquarters of the IBM Corporation and, before that, he served with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He has held positions on the faculties of New York University's Graduate School of Business, the Economics Department of Washington University, and the Olin School of Business at Washington University. He is the past president and a current director of the National Association for Business Economics, the largest non-academic association of professional economists in the United States. He is also past president of the Gateway Association of Business Economists in Saint Louis.
Dr. Prakken has numerous publications to his credit, including papers written for the Council of Economic Advisers, the American Council for Capital Formation, and the Center for the American Study of Business on topics ranging from tax reform, to budget policy, to monetary policy, to the impact of technology on productivity. He has testified frequently on these topics before committees in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. He also participates regularly in the meetings of the Outside Consultants to both the Congressional Budget Office and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
Lynn Reaser
NABE Vice President
As a professional economist Dr. Reaser brings extensive experience in the financial services sector with an uncanny ability to translate complex economic issues into understandable language with relevant and actionable implications. She is skilled at analyzing economic data, modeling, and forecasting and brings an engaging, personal and practical approach to writing and speaking on economic issues to all audiences with a passion towards using economics as a tool to assist people personally and in their enterprises. In her role at PLNU she will be providing actionable economic counsel to the University and its stakeholders, guest lecturing, public speaking as well as working with a Task Force to develop a feasibility study looking into creating a San Diego regional Economic Institute.
From 1999 to 2009, she served as the Chief Economist for Bank of America Investment Strategies Group, and provided the global and U.S. economic framework for investment strategy for high net-worth, institutional, and brokerage clients, encompassing over $500 billion under management. In her Bank of America role, she delivered approximately 100 client presentations per year using highly developed quantitative models to analyze data, forecast various economic series, and project the relative performance of various sectors to maximize investment performance. A leading spokesperson for the bank, Dr. Reaser conducted 200-600 media interviews annually, including newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, wire services, and the Internet. She previously served as Barnett Bank’s and First Interstate Bank’s (Wells Fargo Corporation) Chief Economist. In these roles she furnished economic advice for all of the Bank’s various business lines, including consumer finance, commercial real estate, corporate, and wealth management, and built and led an extraordinarily cohesive team of professional economists that advised senior management on tactical and strategic strategies involving all aspects of the corporation.
Dr. Reaser is active in many professional organizations, including serving as the current Vice-President of the National Association for Business Economics, and in the past year as a member of the Boston Economic Club and the American Bankers’ Association’s Economic Advisory Council. Previously, she served on the Governor’s Council of Economic Advisors for the State of California; Leadership Florida; was a fiscal advisor to cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco; California’s Economic Strategy Panel; Chairman of the Board of Economic Advisors to the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce; President of the Economic Roundtable of Jacksonville; President of the Los Angeles Chapter of the National Association for Business Economics; and member of the Editorial Advisory Board, Contemporary Economic Policy.. She holds a B.A. in Economics (cum laude) and a M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics, all from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Harvey Rosenblum
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
Harvey Rosenblum is executive vice president and director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. In this capacity, he serves as economic policy advisor to the Bank's president and as an associate economist for the Federal Open Market Committee, which formulates the nation's monetary policy.
Rosenblum is also a past president and a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of the National Association for Business Economics (NABE), a prestigious trade association whose 3,000 members are the leading business economists in the United States and many other countries. Past presidents of NABE include several Federal Reserve presidents as well as former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan. Rosenblum is currently serving as Executive Director of the North American Economics and Finance Association. He also is a member of the Product Development and Small Business Incubator Board, appointed by the governor of Texas.
A widely recognized expert on both the national and Texas economies, Rosenblum has written articles for such publications as The Journal of Finance, New York Times, Southwest Economy and The Handbook of Banking Strategy.
Active in economic education, Rosenblum is a visiting professor of finance at Southern Methodist University, teaching courses in contemporary issues on monetary policy and financial institutions and markets.
Rosenblum received a B.A. in economics from the University of Connecticut in 1965 and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1972.
He began his career with the Federal Reserve in 1970 as an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, advancing through the ranks to vice president and associate director of research in 1983. He was also a visiting professor of finance with DePaul University from 1973 until 1985. He joined the Dallas Fed as senior vice president and director of research in 1985 and was promoted to executive vice president in 2005.
His current research interests focus on monetary policy, inflation and the growing impact of globalization on the U.S. economy and businesses.
David Scharfstein
Harvard Business School
David Scharfstein is the Edmund Cogswell Converse Professor of Finance and Banking at the Harvard Business School. He was the Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank Professor of Management and Finance at MIT's Sloan School of Management from 1987-2003 and Assistant Professor at HBS from 1986-1987. He is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Professor Scharfstein is currently pursuing two main lines of research. One focuses on the consequences of the financial crisis for banks and borrowers, as well as policy responses to the crisis. In his other work he is studying the effect of financial markets on the financing and management of biopharmaceutical firms. He has published numerous articles in professional journals in a variety of other topics including risk management, bankruptcy, and banking. He has served as Editor of the RAND Journal of Economics and Associate Editor of the Journal of Finance and The Review of Financial Studies and as a Director of the American Finance Association.
Professor Scharfstein has taught courses in corporate finance in the MBA, Ph.D. and executive education programs at HBS and MIT, and now teaches a course on private equity. Professor Scharfstein has a Ph.D in Economics from MIT (1986) and an A.B. summa cum laude from Princeton University (1982).
Professor Scharfstein has a Ph.D in Economics from MIT (1986) and an A.B. summa cum laude from Princeton University (1982).
Regina Schleiger
Medley Global Advisors
Shawn Schukar
Vice President for Strategic Indicatives at Ameren Services
Ken Simonson
Associated General Contractors
Ken Simonson joined AGC of America on September 10, 2001. Ever since Day Two he has been provided insight into what was happening to the economy and what it implied for construction and related industries.
Ken's weekly one-page email newsletter for AGC, The Data DIGest, provides 6000 readers with the latest economic news relevant to construction. He also sends out a variety of state-specific and tax news. He is interviewed and quoted almost daily by local and national media, including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Business Week, and CNBC. In addition, he has written eight booklets explaining tax provisions in plain English, and he contributes frequently to a variety of business and professional publications and conferences, including columns for Fleet Owner, a trucking magazine, and The Electrical Distributor.
Ken has 30 years of experience analyzing, advocating and communicating about economic and tax issues. Before joining AGC, he was senior economic advisor in the U.S. Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy and 13 years. Earlier, he was vice president and chief economist for the American Trucking Associations. He also worked with the President's Commission on Industrial Competitiveness, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, and an economic consulting firm.
Ken is a board member of the National Association for Business Economics (NABE) and author of "Digging into Construction Data," published in NABE's journal, Business Economics. Since 1982, he has co-chaired the Tax Economists Forum, a professional meeting group he co-founded for leading researchers and policy makers among tax economists. He is vice president of Community Tax Aid, an organization that prepares returns for free for low-income taxpayers. He was one of the principal subjects of The Lobbyists, a bestseller by Jeffrey Birnbaum, now a writer for the Washington Post.
Ken has a BA in economics from the University of Chicago, an MA in economics from Northwestern University, and he has taken advanced graduate economics courses at the Universite de Paris, Johns Hopkins University and Georgetown University.
Charles Steindel
Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Charles Steindel is a Senior Vice President in the Macroeconomic and Monetary Studies Function. He oversees the Group's analysis and forecasts of U.S. economic conditions. His research interests include consumer spending and saving and productivity growth. He has served as president of the Money Marketeers of New York University and the Forecasters Club of New York. He received his bachelor's degree from Emory University and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
His fields of interest include: Chain weighting measuring gdp, Consumer behavior, Cycle capital spending balance sheet, Growth and Productivity, Inflation estimates productivity growth, Investment, Manufacturing, Private saving, Productivity growth, Saving, Saving economic growth, Stock market consumption, Tax rebate.
David Steward
Centene Corporation
William Strauss
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
William A. Strauss is a senior economist and economic advisor in the economic research department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, which he joined in 1982. His chief responsibilities include analyzing the current performance of both the Midwest economy and the manufacturing sector for use in monetary policy. He also produces the monthly Chicago Fed Midwest Manufacturing Index and organizes the Bank's annual Economic Outlook Symposium and annual Auto Outlook Symposium. He also conducts several economic workshops and industrial roundtables throughout the year.
Strauss has taught as an adjunct faculty member at both Loyola University Chicago and Webster University, Chicago. He currently teaches at the University of Chicago, Graham School of General Studies and at DePaul University, Kellstadt Graduate School of Business.
His research paper topics include analysis of the manufacturing sector, the auto sector, the Midwest regional economy, the trade-weighted dollar, business cycles and Federal Reserve payments operations.
Strauss has been interviewed on numerous television and radio shows and quoted in the major business magazines and newspapers. He is a past president of the Chicago Association of Business Economists and currently serves as a board member for the National Association for Business Economics and as a member of the Advisory Council for the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Center for Economic Education.
Strauss earned a B.A. in economics and geography from the State University of New York at Buffalo and an M.A. in economics from Northwestern University.
Rene Stulz
Ohio State University
René M. Stulz is the Everett D. Reese Chair of Banking and Monetary Economics and the Director of the Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics at the Ohio State University. He has also taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Chicago, and the University of Rochester. He received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was awarded a Marvin Bower Fellowship from the Harvard Business School, a Doctorat Honoris Causa from the University of Neuchâtel, and the 1999 Eastern Finance Association Distinguished Scholar Award. In 2004, the magazine Treasury and Risk Management named him one of the 100 most influential people in finance. He is a past president of the American Finance Association and of the Western Finance Association, and a fellow of the American Finance Association, of the Financial Management Association, and of the European Corporate Governance Institute.
René M. Stulz was the editor of the Journal of Finance, the leading academic publication in the field of finance, for twelve years. He is on the editorial board of more than ten academic and practitioner journals. Further, he is a member of the Asset Pricing and Corporate Finance Programs and the director of the Risk of Financial Institutions Group of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
He has published more than sixty papers in finance and economics journals, including the Journal of Political Economy, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Journal of Finance, and the Review of Financial Studies. His published research deals with topics such as the valuation discount of conglomerates, the gains from acquisitions, the benefits and costs of leverage, spinoffs and asset sales, the determinants of liquid asset holdings of firms, secured debt, bank loans, the pricing of exotic options, credit risks, the cost of capital, managerial ownership, the market for corporate control, corporate governance, the performance of firms issuing debt and equity, the determinants of firm capital structures and liquid asset holdings, the use of derivatives in risk management, capital flows, and financial globalization. He is the author of a textbook titled Risk Management and Derivatives and has edited several books, including the Handbook of the Economics of Finance.
René M. Stulz has taught in executive development programs in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. He has consulted for major corporations, law firms, the New York Stock Exchange, the IMF, and the World Bank. He is a director of several companies, the president of the Gamma Foundation, and a trustee of the Global Association of Risk Professionals.
Lawrence Summers
National Economic Council
Lawrence H. Summers is the Director of the National Economic Council and was appointed by President Barack H. Obama on November 24, 2008.
Until January, he was the Charles W. Eliot University Professor at Harvard University. He served as the 27th president of Harvard University from July 2001 until June 2006. From 1999 to 2001, he served as the 71st United States Secretary of the Treasury following his earlier service as Deputy and Under Secretary of the Treasury and as Chief Economist of the World Bank. Summers has taught economics at Harvard and MIT. His research contributions were recognized when he received the John Bates Clark Medal, given every two years to the outstanding American economist under the age of 40, and when he was the first social scientist to receive the National Science Foundation’s Alan T. Waterman Award for outstanding scientific achievement. He is a member of the National Academy of Science and has written extensively on economic analysis and policy publishing over 150 articles in professional economic journals.
Lawrence Summers received his B.S. from MIT and his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard. He and his wife Elisa New, a professor of English at Harvard, have six children.
Diane Swonk
Mesirow Financial
Diane Swonk is a senior managing director and chief economist for Mesirow Financial, a diversified financial services firm based in Chicago. As one of the most sought-after economists in the world, she is frequently called upon by policymakers and business leaders from Washington to Tokyo. Diane joined Mesirow Financial in 2004 after 19 years with Bank One Corporation and its predecessors. She started her career with the First Chicago Corporation in 1985 and quickly moved up the ranks, proving herself as a regional economist with her forecast for a renaissance in the Industrial Midwest just one year later. During her tenure with First Chicago, Diane published several nationally acclaimed studies as well as her first book, The Passionate Economist: Finding the Power and Humanity Behind the Numbers.
Diane sits on several advisory committees to the Federal Reserve Board, its regional banks and the Council of Economic Advisers for the White House. Most recently, she was re-appointed to serve on the Congressional Budget Office's panel of economic advisers. As one of the most quoted economists in the financial press, Diane is seen regularly on national and international television, and her commentary can be read in top financial news publications throughout the world. In addition, she serves as a clinical professor for DePaul University's highly-rated evening MBA program.
Diane currently serves on the Chicago Conservation Center's Advisory Board, is on the sitting committee for the University of Chicago—Graduate School of Business, and is an advisor to the Economic Department for the University of Michigan. She is also involved extensively with the Economic and Executives' Clubs of Chicago. Diane has also served on the Joffrey Ballet Board and chaired the City of Chicago's Climate Change Finance Committee.
Diane is past president of the National Association for Business Economics (NABE), a title that Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and several other Federal Reserve presidents have also shared. Diane was the youngest to serve as president in the association's history and continues to dedicate much of her time to improving the quality and timeliness of economic data, a critical aspect of policymaking.
Diane has earned many awards throughout her career. She was designated "Business Leader of the Year" by the YWCA of Metropolitan Chicago, named a "Fellow" of NABE for her outstanding contributions to the field of business economics and listed as one of the "top forecasters in the country" by the Wall Street Journal. In addition, Today's Chicago Woman named her "Top Woman in Finance in Chicago" and the Chicago Sun-Times crowned her "one of the most influential women in business in Chicago."
Diane earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in economics with top honors from the University of Michigan as well as a master's degree in finance and strategic planning with top honors from the University of Chicago.
Neera Tanden
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Neera Tanden is currently the Counselor for Health Reform at HHS, where she is working on the President’s health care reform plan and helping formulate the department’s response to reform efforts. She is also working on the Department’s interagency Comparative Effectiveness Subgroup as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which is focused on maximizing the effectiveness of the Congress’ $1.1 billion investment in funding. Prior to that she was the Director of Domestic Policy for the Obama Biden Presidential Campaign, where she ran point on the campaign’s major initiative on health care, as well as other domestic issues. Before that, Tanden served as Policy Director for the Hillary Clinton Presidential Campaign where she directed all policy work, ranging from domestic to economic to foreign affairs. She previously served as Senator Clinton's Legislative Director, where she oversaw health care policy, including the Senator’s health care quality legislation and comparative effectiveness proposals. She was formerly Senior Vice President for Domestic Policy at the Center for American Progress, as well as Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, where she worked on the Center’s proposals for universal health care and health care quality. Tanden received her Bachelor of Science degree at UCLA and received her J.D. from Yale Law School.
Carl Tannenbaum
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Carl Tannenbaum leads the Risk Specialist Division of the Supervision and Regulation Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Prior to joining the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Tannenbaum spent nearly 25 years at Chicago-based LaSalle Bank, where he directed the Balance Sheet Risk Management Group and served as the organization's chief economist.
Tannenbaum earned master's and bachelor's degrees in finance and economics from the University of Chicago. He is a Past President of the National Association for Business Economics. He lives in Downers Grove, Illinois.
Anjan Thakor
Washington University in St. Louis
Prior to joining the Olin Business School, Thakor was The Edward J. Frey Professor of Banking and Finance at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, where he also served as chairman of the Finance area. He has served on the faculties of Indiana University, Northwestern University, and UCLA. He has worked with many companies, including Whirlpool Corporation, Allision Engine Co., Citigroup, RR Donnelley, Dana Corporation, Anheuser-Busch, Zenith Corporation, Lincoln National Corporation, J.P. Morgan, Landscape Structures, Inc., CIGNA, Borg-Warner Automative, Waxman Industries, Reuters, The Limited, Ryder Integrated Logistics, AT&T, CH2M Hill, Takata Corporation, Tyson Foods, Spartech, and Bunge. He also served as an expert witness in many federal cases involving banking litigation.
Tommy Thompson
19th U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services
Zdenek Tuma
Governor, Czech National Bank
Born on 19 October 1960 in Ceské Budejovice. Zdenek Tuma graduated from the Faculty of Trade at the University of Economics, Prague, and worked there after completing his studies. In 1986 he joined the Institute for Forecasting of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences as a postgraduate researcher. In 1993-1995 he was an adviser to the Minister of Industry and Trade, and from 1995 he was Chief Economist at Patria Finance. From 1 June 1998 until joining the CNB at the beginning of 1999 he held the post of Executive Director of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, representing the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Croatia on the Board of Directors.
He was appointed Vice-Governor of the Czech National Bank on 13 February 1999 and Governor of the Czech National Bank on 1 December 2000. On 11 February 2005, he was reappointed by the President as Governor for another six-year term.
In 1990-1998, he lectured on macroeconomics at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University. From 1999 to 2001 he held the post of President of the Czech Economics Society.
Between 2003 and 2006, he was a member of the Scientific Council at Charles University. He was elected a member of the Scientific Council of the Czech Technical University in Prague for the period from 1 February 2006 to 31 January 2010. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of Economics in Prague, a member of the Graduation Council at the Centre for Economic Research and Graduate Education (CERGE) at Charles University in Prague, a member of the Board of Governors of the English College in Prague, a member of the Board of Editors of Finance a úv?r (Czech Journal of Economics and Finance) and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Jan and Meda Mládek Foundation. He was appointed a member of the Supervisory Board of the Economics Institute, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, for the period from 1 May 2007 to 30 April 2012.
In the early 1990s, he studied in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and the USA. He regularly publishes and speaks on monetary policy and macroeconomics at home and abroad.
Chris Varvares
President, Macroeconomic Advisers
NABE President
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.
Kate Warne
Edward Jones
Kate Warne, Ph.D., CFA, has been with the Edward Jones Research department since 1997. She was named a principal with the firm in 1999 and became a member of the Investment Policy Advisory Committee in 2003.
Warne is the firm’s market strategist in Canada and the U.K., interpreting market conditions and recommending appropriate long-term investment strategies to aid the firm’s more than 7 million clients in reaching their investment goals.
Warne holds a doctorate in economics, specializing in finance and competitive strategy, from Yale University, a master of science from the London School of Economics and a bachelor’s degree with high honors from Swarthmore College. She earned her Chartered Financial Analyst designation in 1997.
Warne has appeared on CBS, CNBC, CNN, BBC, Canada’s CBC and Business News Network. She has been quoted in such major publications as The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Globe and Mail, the Scotsman, the Financial Times, Forbes and Fortune.
Warne was the energy analyst at Edward Jones prior to assuming her current position as market strategist. She has worked for AT&T and General Motors, and was an assistant professor of finance at the John M. Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis. Warne previously lectured at Yale University and was an economist at the President’s Council of Economic Advisors.
David Wessel
Wall Street Journal
Wessel is economics editor of The Wall Street Journal and writes the Capital column, a weekly look at the economy and forces shaping living standards around the world. He has shared two Pulitzer Prizes, one for Boston Globe stories in 1983 on the persistence of racism in Boston and the other for stories in 2002 in The Wall Street Journal on corporate wrongdoing. A 1975 graduate of Haverford College, he was Knight Bagehot Fellow in business and economics journalism at Columbia University in 1980–81.
James A. Wilcox
Haas School of Business
University of California, Berkeley
James A. Wilcox is the Lowrey Professor of Financial Institutions at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.
Jim has published widely on banking and credit unions, on housing and mortgage markets, on monetary policy, and on interest rates. His articles have been published the top academic economics and finance journals.
Jim teaches courses on macroeconomics, on financial markets and institutions, and on risk management at financial institutions. Jim has won several awards at Berkeley for his teaching. He has also served as Chair of the Finance Group at the Haas School.
From 1999-2001, Jim was the Chief Economist at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in Washington, DC. Previously, he had served in Washington as the senior economist for monetary policy and macroeconomics for the President’s Council of Economic Advisers under the first President Bush and as an economist for the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. He has also been a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and is a Fellow of the Wharton Financial Institutions Center and the Filene Research Institute. Jim received his Ph.D. in economics from Northwestern University.
Jim’s homepage (http://www.haas.berkeley.edu/finance/wilcox.html) provides more information and access to some of his publications.
Yong Yang
Ford Motor Company
Mark Zandi
Moody’s Economy.com
Mark Zandi is chief economist and cofounder of Moody’s Economy.com, where he directs the company’s research and consulting activities. Moody’s Economy.com, a division of Moody’s Analytics, provides economic research and consulting services to businesses, governments and other institutions.
Mark’s research interests include macro, financial and regional economics. His recent research has studied the determinants of mortgage foreclosure and personal bankruptcy, analyzed the economic impact of various tax and government spending policies, and assessed the appropriate policy response to bubbles in asset markets. Mark also conducts regular briefings on the economy. He is quoted often in national and global publications, is frequently interviewed by major news media outlets, and is the author of Financial Shock, an exposé of the subprime financial crisis.
Mark was an economic advisor to the John McCain campaign for president, has provided advice to the Obama administration, and regularly testifies in Congress. His most recent testimony has been on the economic impact of fiscal stimulus and the merits of providing government aid to the vehicle industry.
Dr. Zandi received his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania, where he did his research with Gerard Adams and Nobel laureate Lawrence Klein, and received his B.S. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
