The following article summarizes the original event which is listed below the summary.
March 28th speaker discussed Minnesota's economy and budget process
Dr. Laura Kalambokidis, Professor of Applied Economics and our Minnesota State Economist spoke at the March 28th UMRA Luncheon. She enlightened us about the strength and resiliency of the MN economy mainly due to the diversity of our industries and the strength of our well-educated labor pool. But, with the aging population we need to invest in education and jobs for our diverse ethnic population and encourage immigration to enrich our future labor market. The process of creating the State’s revenue forecast was most informative and helped us understand the headlines announcing that the state will have $1.65 billion budget surpus in the 2018-19 biennium.
March 2017 Minnesota's economic outlook, with State Economist Laura Kalambokidis
Tue, March 28 2017, 11:30am
Conference Room ABC, Campus Club, Fourth Floor, Coffman Memorial Union
The most recent budget forecast for Minnesota’s budget balance is $678 million for the current biennium (2016-2017). This increases to $1.4 billion for 2018-2019. Where do these numbers come from? Who makes these forecasts? It is Minnesota’s State Economist, Dr. Laura Kalambokidis, who heads the Economic Analysis team at the Minnesota Management and Budget office (MMB). She and a staff of two economists and a model programmer comprise Economic Analysis at MMB. They are responsible for preparing and presenting the state's twice-yearly Budget and Economic Forecast and quarterly Revenue and Economic Update.
Dr. Kalambokidis' principal responsibility as Minnesota's State Economist is to supervise the production of revenue and economic forecasts. Other duties include monitoring the state's revenue collections, tracking the performance of Minnesota's economy, and informing decision-makers in Minnesota on economic and fiscal issues. Dr. Kalambokidis also serves as the state's chief economics spokesperson. She has frequent public speaking engagements and responds to questions and interviews with the media on such topics as Minnesota's economy and tax revenue.
Dr. Kalambokidis is also a professor in the Department of Applied Economics and an extension economist at the University of Minnesota, where she teaches public sector economics and conducts research on a range of federal and state tax policy issues. She was a member of the Minnesota State Budget Trends Study Commission in 2007-08 and the Minnesota Tax Expenditure Review Study Group in 2010-11. Prior to assuming her position at the university, she was a financial economist in the Office of Tax Analysis in the U.S. Department of Treasury in Washington, D.C, where she provided economic analysis of tax policy issues and developed models to estimate the revenue effects of proposed tax changes.
Laura has been Minnesota State Economist since 2013. She holds a Ph.D. degree in Economics from the University of Michigan and an undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of Minnesota.
--Jean Kinsey, UMRA past president
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