Approximately 90 people came to listen recently as Dr. R. Glenn Hubbard, dean of the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University and UCF College of Business Administration alumnus, presented “Economic Outlook: The Path Forward.”
During his hour-long presentation, Dr. Hubbard discussed the causes of the financial crisis and what to expect in the next year as the economy recovers.
Hubbard acknowledged that there were different schools of thought on why the “Great Recession” had occurred, but that he believed it was partially due to a boom in productivity growth during the mid-1990s, a big imbalance in capital markets, and a lenient Federal Reserve policy during the past decade that put “wind in the sails of the bubble.”
Open Video – “Economic Outlook: The Path Forward”
Hubbard cautioned that although the economic recovery was well underway, the unemployment rate would take a while to come down. Asked about the policy challenges going forward, Hubbard said that “productivity growth remains the clear policy objective for the U.S. economy” and called for greater transparency in the financial system and ending the notion of “too big to fail.”
Hubbard served as chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisors from 2001–2003 and was a deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury Department from 1991–1993. He is currently the Russell L. Carson Professor of Finance and Economics at Columbia, a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a co-chair of the nonpartisan Committee on Capital Markets Regulation. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1983 and he graduated summa cum laude from the University of Central Florida in 1979 with BA and BS degrees in Economics.