2025 Santa Barbara County Economic Summit on May 12, 2025 | UCSB Arts & Lectures

Program: 4:30 PM-6 PM
Reception: 6 PM-7:30 PM 

Ticket includes digital access to the 2025 Economic Outlook Publication and post-event reception 

The annual Santa Barbara County Economic Summit features presentations by a panel of experts on the state of the economy and policy in Santa Barbara and California. 

Featured Speakers

George Alessandria
Professor of Economics | University of Rochester
Research Associate | National Bureau of Economic Research
Trade Policy and the Economy: Past, Present, and Future
George Alessandria is a Professor of Economics at the University of Rochester and NBER Research Associate. Prior to joining Rochester, in 2014, he was a senior policy advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. He has held academic positions at Ohio State, New York University, The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and Princeton University.

Jim Bullard
Dr. Samuel R. Allen Dean, Mitch Daniels School of Business,
Professor of Economics | Purdue University
U.S. Economy & Monetary Policy
Jim is the former chief executive officer and 12th president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, a position he held from 2008 until August 2023. In July 2023, he was named dean of the Mitch Daniels School of Business at Purdue University.

Lee Ohanian
Distinguished Professor of Economics | UCLA
Senior Fellow | Hoover Institution, Stanford University
How California’s Homelessness and Housing Problems Became Intractable
Lee is director of the Ettinger Family Program in Macroeconomic Research at UCLA. He is an adviser to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and previously advised other Federal Reserve Banks, foreign central banks, and the National Science Foundation.

Peter Rupert 
Director | UC Santa Barbara Economic Forecast Project
Trade Winds & Digital Tides: Tariffs, AI, and Other Stuff
Peter is the director of the UCSB Economic Forecast Project and a professor in the UCSB Department of Economics. He is also associate director of the UCSB Laboratory for Aggregate Economics and Finance with Nobel Laureate, Finn Kydland.