UCLA Anderson Forecast

Founded by Professor Robert M. Williams in 1952, the national forecast has been recognized as one of the most accurate and has a reputation for being unbiased – a factor that the numerous corporate and Wall Street forecasts cannot lay claim to. The UCLA Anderson Forecast for California is the most widely followed and oft-cited in the state and was unique in predicting both the seriousness of the early-1990s downturn and the strength of the state economy’s rebound since 1993. It was also credited as the first major U.S. economic forecasting group to declare the recession of 2001. More recently, it was the first group to predict the 2020 COVID recession.

Current director Jerry Nickelsburg along with economists William Yu, Zhiyun Li, Thomas Ash, Sayantani Sayantani and professor emeritus Edward Leamer and Forecast emeritus David Shulman, combine their own expertise with the latest computer-based econometric models. We have published regional forecasts for Los Angeles, Orange County, San Francisco, and other local regional economies.

Our quarterly conferences are attended by a cross-section of business, government and academic decision-makers from all over California as well as the United States. We typically draw 400-500 attendees. Many of our attendees subscribe to the Forecast and attend most or all of our quarterly conferences. Others are drawn by the specific topic of a conference, such as the recent energy crisis, globalization, or entertainment as a key part of the regional economy.

Seminar members include companies: Cathay Bank and Southern California Edison; regional entities include the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and Los Angeles Country Metropolitan Transportation Authority; and California entities include the Department of Finance, the Employment Development Department, and the CA State Controller’s Office.