Drone shot of the Chicago Booth campus tinted blue and looking towards the Chicago skyline in the distance

Economic Outlook History

A tradition of forward thinking.

Economist Beryl Sprinkel and professors Walter Fackler and Irving Schweiger prepare for the 1971 Business Forecast.
Economist Beryl Sprinkel and professors Walter Fackler and Irving Schweiger prepare for the 1971 Business Forecast.

Chicago Booth is renowned for faculty whose insights and analyses reshape the face of business, markets, and the global economy.

The strength of Booth’s unique perspective is reflected in one of the school’s most venerable traditions, Economic Outlook, which was established in 1954 as Business Forecast.

Drawing on Booth’s culture of unparalleled inquiry, this annual event provides a forum for our pathbreaking thought leaders to confront the future, evaluating emergent trends, and sharing key insights that help reframe our understanding of the world to come.

In recent years, Booth faculty participants have included Steven J. Davis, William H. Abbott Professor of International Business and Economics; Austan D. Goolsbee, Robert P. Gwinn Professor of Economics; Veronica Guerrieri, Ronald E. Tarrson Professor of Economics and Willard Graham Faculty Scholar; Chang-Tai Hsieh, Phyllis and Irwin Winkelried Professor of Economics and PCL Faculty Scholar; John Huizinga, Walter David “Bud” Fackler Distinguished Service Professor of Economics; Erik Hurst, Frank P. and Marianne R. Diassi Distinguished Service Professor of Economics; Deputy Director of the Becker Friedman Institute, and John E. Jeuck Faculty Fellow; Anil K. Kashyap, Stevens Distinguished Service Professor of Economics and Finance; Randall S. Kroszner, Deputy Dean for Executive Programs and Norman R. Bobins Professor of Economics; Raghuram G. Rajan, Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance; and Amir Sufi, Bruce Lindsay Professor of Economics and Public Policy.

Distinguished alumni and other economic and financial leaders join our faculty for Economic Outlook. Recent nonfaculty participants include Nobel laureate Myron Scholes, MBA ’64, PhD ’70; Singapore’s minister for finance, Tharman Shanmugaratnam; managing director and head of economics and emerging markets research at Barclays Capital, Piero Ghezzi; and Richard Wong, AB ’74, AM ’74, PhD ’80, founding director of the Hong Kong Centre for Economic Research and the Hong Kong Institute of Economics and Business Strategy at the University of Hong Kong School of Economics.