Presented By: University of Michigan Retirees Association (UMRA)
The Outlook for Consumers in Today's Economy
Joanne W. Hsu, Research Associate Professor, Institute for Social Research
Dr. Hsu is director of the monthly Surveys of Consumers, tracking leading economic indicators including consumer sentiment and expectations. Her research is primarily in the fields of household finance, labor economics, public economics, and survey methods, with a current focus on financial sophistication and cognition, and consumer experiences with debt. She is an appointed member of the American Economic Association Committee on Economic Statistics (AEAStat) and associate chair of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession (AEA CSWEP). She also serves on the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago's Academic Advisory Council. Previously, she served as a Principal Economist in the Division of Research and Statistics at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, where her policy portfolio included the Survey of Consumer of Finances and the consumption forecast, as well as a visiting professor at the Department of Economics, Howard University. She completed her PhD in economics at the University of Michigan and her AB in economics and international relations at Brown University.