Panel of business faculty to examine future of global economy

A panel of Kelley School of Business professors and faculty will be looking ahead to 2006 and forecasting the likely economic trends for the global economy, the United States, Indiana and the major metropolitan Indiana cities in the coming year. \nIn addition to holding the discussion today at the Indiana Memorial Union's Alumni Hall, the talk will be held in various Indiana cities such as Indianapolis, Columbus, Richmond, Anderson, Kokomo, South Bend, New Albany and New Shererville. This discussion will provide an outlook pertaining to issues such as economic output, gross domestic product, inflation, interest rates, the housing market, employment and unemployment, international trade and budgets.\nThe panelists will include IU professors and faculty such as John Boquist, professor of finance; Jerry Conover, director of the Indiana Business Research Center; Andreas Hauskrecht, assistant professor of business economics and public policy; Morton Marcus, director emeritus of IBRC; Robert Neal, associate professor of finance; Phillip T. Powell, clinical associate professor of business economics and public policy; William Sartoris, professor of finance and director of the Investment Banking Academy; James Smith, IU senior lecturer in finance; and Willard Witte, associate professor of economics and director of the IU Center for Econometric Model Research.\nConover said the discussion will try to clarify a blurry picture of what the economic forecast looks like for 2006. "We will be discussing some of the factors pertaining to the uncertain outlook, which is more uncertain now than a few months ago due to the costs of reconstruction used with tax money going towards hurricane damage, and the disruption of the fuel supplies due to the natural disasters," Conover said.\nThe tour will be sponsored by IU's Kelley School of Business, the IU Alumni Association and IU campuses, among various other organizations in the surrounding Bloomington community. The panel discussion begins at 11:30 a.m. and admission is $10 per person. The host organizations for today's discussion will be the Bloomington Rotary Club, the Bloomington North Rotary Club, the Bloomington Sunshine Rotary Club, Bank One and the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce.