CLU's Bill Watkins addresses Calif. Senate

(SACRAMENTO, Calif. – April 11, 2013) Bill Watkins, executive director of the California Lutheran University Center for Economic Research and Forecasting, will speak to California state senators at noon on Monday, April 15, as part of the Senate’s Distinguished Speaker Forum.

Watkins will discuss “California’s 21st Century” at the invitation of Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg. People can watch the session live at http://www.calchannel.com/live-webcast/.

Introduced this year, the forum gives senators an opportunity to hear from Californians with a unique view of the state, its issues and its people in order to inform decision-making. A range of scientists, authors and policy experts have discussed how the state arrived where it is, how it is changing and what the future may hold.

Watkins has provided unflinching economic forecasts for more than a decade and has been widely published and quoted in academic journals and the media, including the Wall Street Journal, CNN and Forbes. He writes a regular column for the Orange County Register.

Watkins helped launch CERF at the Thousand Oaks university in 2009 to provide local, state and national forecasts for government, business and nonprofit leaders. The National Association for Business Economics, the Economist, CNN Money and Case-Shiller Macro Markets have included CERF forecasters in their surveys on economic policies and outlooks, home prices, jobs and the presidential election.

An associate professor of economics who helped start a graduate program in economics at CLU, Watkins formerly served as the executive director of the Economic Forecast Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and as an economist with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, D.C. He holds a doctorate in economics from UCSB.