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Economic Outlook to be held next week
SCSU's Center for Economic Education will host its annual Winter Institute and Economic Outlook next week
Students, business people, politicians and teachers will get a dose of economics when SCSU's Center for Economic Education hosts its annual Winter Institute and Economic Outlook next week.
The Winter Institute, which is in its 40th year, will host two guest speakers and a discussion panel March 1. The eighth annual Economic Outlook takes place Feb. 28, as an associated part of the Winter Institute, and will feature speakers' opinions on where the economy is headed for the next year. In addition, invitation-only workshops for teachers will span the afternoons of both days.
The Economic Outlook begins Thursday at 5 p.m. This year's event will focus on "The Prospects for Recovery." Several economists will look at the global, national, regional and local economy, and predict what the following year will bring. Speaker topics include, "The National and Global Economic Outlook," "The Next Recovery: How Long, How Strong � and When?" and "The Minnesota Outlook."
Mark Partridge, professor in SCSU's Department of Economics, will speak at the Economic Outlook about the local economy, in his speech entitled, "Will the Last Person to Leave St. Cloud Please Turn Off the Lights: Are Times Really That Bad?"
The Economic Outlook will convene at the St. Cloud Civic Center. This helps attract people from outside the SCSU community to participate in the Winter Institute activities, Dr. Rich MacDonald, Assistant Director of the Center for Economic studies, said.
"It is a program that we hold downtown," MacDonald said, "which helps with accessibility to the Winter Institute with some of the business community and some regional political leaders."
Ken Rebeck, Director of the Center for Economic Education, is coordinating this year's Winter Institute and Economic Outlook. Rebeck said he was not exactly sure what predictions would arise from the outlook.
"As far as what they'll say, we don't get their speeches ahead of time," Rebeck said.
The Winter Institute begins at 8:45 a.m. Friday in Kimberly A. Ritsche Auditorium. Two speakers, Martin Regalia and John Lott, highlight the morning program, "The Economics of Terror." Regalia is vice president for economy and tax policy and chief economist of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and will discuss his economic predictions for 2002. Lott is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and will speak about "More Guns, Less Crime, Less Terrorism."
MacDonald said the long tradition of the Winter Institute attracts high profile people to participate as speakers. He said past speakers have been Nobel Prize winners, economic policy makers of the treasury, world-renowned economic thinkers, and even the chair of the Federal Reserve.
"You find that there are well-known economists who are willing to put their name on that list," MacDonald said. "That's one of our biggest selling points, that we been doing it for 40 years, and we've had Alan Greenspan here, and we've had Milton Friedman and Gary Becker and Paul Samuelson � all having won Nobel Prizes. It helps sell itself; the institution helps us a lot with selling the program (to speakers).
"These are pretty important and powerful people. Their time is worth a lot," he added.
Following the speakers, the Winter Institute will have a discussion panel on the issue of affordable housing. While this issue has a national importance, the panel's discussion will have a closer-to-home focus.
"It certainly is a local issue," MacDonald said. "We know that to be the case. To that end, we've tried to bring in some local experts, people who probably take different sides on the issue, locally." The Center for Economic Education has also planed to bring in a few experts familiar with the regional housing market, so it is probable that the discussion will cover both the St. Cloud and Twin Cities areas. MacDonald said Center for Economic Education wanted to include something local in Friday's program, which has been primarily about national speakers in the past.
"This is sort of a new thing for us," MacDonald said. "We always brought in the high profile speakers, but this year we're trying to see how a panel works on a local issue or regional issue such as affordable housing. We're just trying to draw on new and different constituencies so that everybody sort of is a stakeholder in this program."
Registration for the Winter Institute and Economic Outlook is free, although there is a fee for the dinner following the Economic Outlook, and the banquet following the Winter Institute. MacDonald and Rebeck are optimistic about another successful year.
"When we first started calling the speakers, they were very excited about coming up here, and it got me excited," Rebeck said.
"We always want economic education to be more visible in the community," said MacDonald, "to the extent that this helps people understand the importance of economic literacy."
Eric O'Link can be reached at: [email protected]
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