On October 16, 2019, Sam Kahan of ACT Research will be honored with the Lawrence R. Klein Award, regarded as one of the best-known and longest-standing achievements in the field of economic forecasts.

Kahan, a well-known and respected financial economist with more than 30 years analyzing and forecasting the global capital markets, has had the most accurate economic forecasts among the nation’s top economists for the years 2015 through 2018.

At the ceremony, Kahan will deliver his 2020 economic forecast, including these predictions:

• Despite the long list of headwinds, a forecast of decelerating but still positive real GDP growth for the U.S. economy.
• Regarding sectors, transportation, and freight, expect to experience declines consistent with weakness of the goods-producing segments of the economy.
• The consumer sector will continue to be the main engine for growth.
• Trade and related factors like tariffs will remain the key risk elements.
• Regarding policy levers, the Federal Reserve will remain the major game in town, even as it is not well understood.

“I am honored to receive the prestigious Lawrence R. Klein Blue Chip Forecasting Award,” said Kahan. “It is a real privilege to be included in the pantheon of influential American economists. No person stands alone. I want to acknowledge the support and input of the other members of the ACT Research team, without whom this achievement would not have occurred.”

He demonstrated amazing consistency, outshining some 50 competitors for this year’s award, which is judged and sponsored by the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. The Blue Chip Economic Indicators newsletter is the source of the forecasts used to select the winner.

“The most accurate forecasters during the 2015-to-2018 period picked up the dip in GDP growth rate in 2016, foresaw the very low inflation rate in 2015, and tracked the downward trend in unemployment year by year,” said economics Professor Dennis Hoffman, director of the L. William Seidman Research Institute at the W. P. Carey School of Business. “Sam Kahan consistently beat the consensus and finished strong with particularly low forecast errors across the board for 2018.”

“Sam adds considerable depth and perspective to the economic forecasting efforts at ACT Research, and we are pleased that he has chosen to ply his trade at our boutique research shop,” said Kenny Vieth, president and senior analyst at ACT Research. “We are even more pleased that his hard work and career in economics is being acknowledged with such a prestigious accolade. Predicting the future is hard, and a solid thesis is required to maintain precision over a four-year window.”

The W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University is one of the top-ranked business schools in the United States. The school is internationally regarded for its research productivity and its distinguished faculty members, including a Nobel Prize winner. Students come from more than 100 countries and W. P. Carey is represented by alumni in over 160 countries.