Center for Economic Research and Forecasting wins Latino Leadership Award

The authors of the U.S. Latino GDP Report are, from left to right, Paul Hsu, Dan Hamilton, David Hayes-Bautista and Matthew Fienup. (Photo: Courtesy of CERF)

California Lutheran University’s Center for Economic Research and Forecasting (CERF) economists Dan Hamilton and Matthew Fienup, along with research partners David Hayes-Bautista and Paul Hsu of UCLA, are recipients of the 2023 Pacific Coast Business Times’ Latino Leadership Award. The team received the award for its development of the Latino GDP Project, an ambitious effort to document the large and rapidly growing economic contribution of Latinos living in the United States. The project includes separate U.S., State and Metro-Area Latino GDP reports.

The Latino GDP Project has been the subject of more than 120 separate features across print, digital and broadcast media, including the Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, MarketWatch, Forbes, Axios, NBC News, CNBC, MSNBC, The Hill, yahoo!finance and Telemundo. The research has been presented live to more than 12,500 people in nine different states, including to the U.S. Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and was the centerpiece of a systemwide Hispanic heritage event held by the U.S. Federal Reserve System.

The total economic output, or GDP, of Latinos in the United States was $2.8 trillion in 2020, up from, $1.7 trillion in 2010. If Latinos living in the United States were an independent country, the U.S. Latino GDP would be the fifth largest GDP in the world, larger even than the GDPs of the United Kingdom, India or France. From 2010 to 2020, the U.S. Latino GDP was the third fastest growing among the 10 largest GDPs, while the broader U.S. economy ranked fifth. These data reveal that U.S. Latinos are drivers of economic growth and a critical source of resilience for the broader economy. Cal Lutheran’s Center for Economic Research and Forecasting (CERF) is a nationally recognized economic forecasting house and a member of both the Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey and the National Association for Business Economics Economic Outlook Survey. Dr. Fienup and Dr. Hamilton received 2019, 2020 and 2021 Crystal Ball Awards for the Zillow (formerly Case-Shiller) Home Price Expectations Survey. CERF’s U.S. home price forecast received multiple top-three rankings among more than 100 forecasts included in the survey.