In memoriam: Edward Leamer, 80, professor and director of UCLA Anderson Forecast
Edward Leamer, a distinguished professor emeritus of global economics and management at the UCLA Anderson School of Management and former director of the UCLA Anderson Forecast, died Feb. 25 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 80.
Over the course of an academic career spanning more than five decades, Leamer made profound contributions to the field of economics in areas as varied research methodologies, global economics and economic forecasting. A stalwart proponent of bringing often rarefied economic theories face to face with real-world facts, he even put his own scholarship to the test with a run for vice president in 2016.
“It can be difficult to summarize Ed’s myriad essential contributions to the field of economics because his specific interests broadened, shifted and evolved throughout his career,” said UCLA Anderson Dean Antonio Bernardo. “But it is impossible to overstate his impact.”
On Feb. 1, 2025, nearly 200 colleagues, friends and family members — including three Nobel laureates in economics — paid tribute to Leamer and his more than five decades of transformative research.
That impact might be best assessed by the influence Leamer had on others, from fellow economists and business practitioners to government policymakers and students, Bernardo said.
Among his most influential publications, which included five books and more than 100 papers in leading academic journals, was his seminal article “Let’s Take the Con Out of Econometrics,” published in 1983 in the American Economics Review. In that paper, he argued that his colleagues needed to take a more critical approach and adopt greater transparency in their economic modeling to avoid limitations and potential biases. What was at the time a shot across the bow has today become widely accepted practice — and has led to greater clarity and accountability in economic theorizing and forecasting.
As director of the UCLA Anderson Forecast from 2000 to 2016, his quarterly economic predictions — presented in a new narrative format more accessible to the public — were closely watched across media, business, government and other fields, both in California and across the country. In 2000, Leamer and UCLA Anderson were the first major forecast to predict what would ultimately become the 2001 recession.
And at UCLA Anderson, where he taught courses in business and global economics for nearly four decades, Leamer participated in over 40 doctoral committees, chairing more than 30. His students have gone on to hold important roles across academia, government and the private sector, both in the U.S. and internationally.
Fifty years at UCLA
Born May 24, 1944, and raised in Binghamton, New York, Leamer received his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Princeton University in 1966 and went on to earn a master’s in mathematics and a doctorate in economics from the University of Michigan in 1970.
Following in the footsteps of his father, a university economist, he took a position as an assistant professor of economics at Harvard University, where he served for five years before coming to UCLA as a professor in the department of economics in 1975. He served as chair of the economics department from 1983 to 1987. In 1990, he joined the faculty of UCLA Anderson as the Chauncey J. Medberry Professor Management, a position he held until his retirement in late 2018.
Throughout his time in academia, Leamer also lent his expertise to the Federal Reserve Board, the International Monetary Fund and the National Bureau of Economic Research and held appointments at Harvard, Yale and Central European University, among others. He was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Econometric Society.
In honor of Leamer’s championing of transparency in economic research, the Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences in 2015 launched a three-year series of awards known as the Leamer–Rosenthal Prizes for Open Social Science (which also honored UC Riverside psychologist Robert Rosenthal) to recognize academics committed to engaging in transparent research practices and pioneering new methods to increase the rigor of research.
In 2016, at the awarding of the Leamer–Rosenthal Prizes for Open Social Science, Leamer shared his perspective on how the movement for research transparency had evolved over the years and new challenges on the horizon.
A new approach: Storytelling and clarity in economic forecasting
In 2000, Leamer took on his most public-facing role, as director of the UCLA Anderson Forecast. The Forecast had been around for decades, and under Leamer’s tenure it remained one of the most respected yardsticks of the economies of California and the nation, a tool relied upon by economists, business people and media outlets throughout the country and around the world.
The basis for that expanded reach and credibility was partly the result of Leamer’s willingness to buck the trend of how economic forecasts were presented. The goal at UCLA, he said, was to focus not solely on the numbers — as most other forecasts did — but to frame projections within the context of the forces that cause the economy to sway in one direction or another.
“My view is that forecast numbers are unintelligible and meaningless,” Leamer told UCLA Magazine in 2001. “What you’ve got to do is show a picture that communicates the main message, and then you must tell the story as well. Don’t come here for the what of the forecast, which is the numbers. Come here for the why. I’m going to tell you why I think this; if you listen to me, and if you agree, you’re going to understand my message.”
Diana Koenigsberg
“Don’t come here for the what of the forecast,” Leamer was fond of saying. “Come here for the why.”
“There was an important element of storytelling in his methodology and approach,” said Sebastian Edwards a friend and professor at UCLA Anderson. “There had to be a narrative, supported by a combination of technical and nontechnical tools. But for the narrative to be persuasive, very sophisticated statistical techniques were needed, and he was one of the strongest statisticians in the profession from a technical point of view. The narratives he built were anchored on solid theory.”
Even his theoretical approach diverged from the mainstream. As he had throughout his career, Leamer argued against convention, contending that most economic theories and forecasts were based on the assumption that long-term economic trends would continue to repeat themselves. And while repeating events were an important element in forecasting, there were countless other unpredicted influences — embargoes, wars, assassinations, droughts, government investments and new policies — that played major roles, he said.
“One of Ed’s most important contributions was to emphasize that economic data come from non-repeated events, and therefore the methodology of interpretation of statistical analysis of that data must perforce be different than that applied in the natural sciences,” said Jerry Nickelsburg, who worked alongside Leamer at the Forecast before succeeding him as director. “That perspective made a significant difference in the application of economics to policy issues.”
A hat in the ring: Leamer for VP
At the tail end of his tenure with the Forecast, Leamer entered politics, joining a ticket with Boston University economist and former UCLA faculty member Laurence Kotlikoff as a write-in candidate for vice president of the U.S.
While he had no illusions of winning, Leamer saw his candidacy an opportunity to bring to the fore what he felt were key economic issues, including better employment prospects for college and high school graduates, help in alleviating the debt load of college students, and a rethinking of Social Security and Medicare.
“Economists are taught to think logically and clearly about all the potential impacts of a policy — not just the surface impact, but that which is unexpected,” he said in an interview with UCLA Newsroom at the time. “A famous 19th-century French economist named Frederic Bastiat said, ‘There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.’”
Nobel laureates and others pay tribute
UCLA
Just weeks before Leamer died, nearly 200 colleagues, friends and family members gathered online to pay him tribute. Those in attendance included James Heckman, Lars Hansen and Thomas Sargent, all recipients of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics — for which Leamer himself had at times been proposed as a candidate — along with dozens of fellow economists, a group that included many of his former students.
Leamer once said that the most difficult thing a person can do is engage in deep thought. His brother, the journalist and author Laurence Leamer, echoed that sentiment in reference to Ed at the end of the tribute.
“The greatest adventure is the intellectual adventure,” Laurence said of his brother. “And he has climbed Everest, run the four-minute mile and swam the English Channel.”
Leamer is survived by his wife, Ama Neel, a UCLA Anderson alumnus, his children, grandchildren and other family members.
Edward Leamer, a distinguished professor emeritus of global economics and management at the UCLA Anderson School of Management and former director of the UCLA Anderson Forecast, died Feb. 25 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 80.
Over the course of an academic career spanning more than five decades, Leamer made profound contributions to the field of economics in areas as varied research methodologies, global economics and economic forecasting. A stalwart proponent of bringing often rarefied economic theories face to face with real-world facts, he even put his own scholarship to the test with a run for vice president in 2016.
“It can be difficult to summarize Ed’s myriad essential contributions to the field of economics because his specific interests broadened, shifted and evolved throughout his career,” said UCLA Anderson Dean Antonio Bernardo. “But it is impossible to overstate his impact.”
On Feb. 1, 2025, nearly 200 colleagues, friends and family members — including three Nobel laureates in economics — paid tribute to Leamer and his more than five decades of transformative research.
That impact might be best assessed by the influence Leamer had on others, from fellow economists and business practitioners to government policymakers and students, Bernardo said.
Among his most influential publications, which included five books and more than 100 papers in leading academic journals, was his seminal article “Let’s Take the Con Out of Econometrics,” published in 1983 in the American Economics Review. In that paper, he argued that his colleagues needed to take a more critical approach and adopt greater transparency in their economic modeling to avoid limitations and potential biases. What was at the time a shot across the bow has today become widely accepted practice — and has led to greater clarity and accountability in economic theorizing and forecasting.
As director of the UCLA Anderson Forecast from 2000 to 2016, his quarterly economic predictions — presented in a new narrative format more accessible to the public — were closely watched across media, business, government and other fields, both in California and across the country. In 2000, Leamer and UCLA Anderson were the first major forecast to predict what would ultimately become the 2001 recession.
And at UCLA Anderson, where he taught courses in business and global economics for nearly four decades, Leamer participated in over 40 doctoral committees, chairing more than 30. His students have gone on to hold important roles across academia, government and the private sector, both in the U.S. and internationally.
Fifty years at UCLA
Born May 24, 1944, and raised in Binghamton, New York, Leamer received his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Princeton University in 1966 and went on to earn a master’s in mathematics and a doctorate in economics from the University of Michigan in 1970.
Following in the footsteps of his father, a university economist, he took a position as an assistant professor of economics at Harvard University, where he served for five years before coming to UCLA as a professor in the department of economics in 1975. He served as chair of the economics department from 1983 to 1987. In 1990, he joined the faculty of UCLA Anderson as the Chauncey J. Medberry Professor Management, a position he held until his retirement in late 2018.
Throughout his time in academia, Leamer also lent his expertise to the Federal Reserve Board, the International Monetary Fund and the National Bureau of Economic Research and held appointments at Harvard, Yale and Central European University, among others. He was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Econometric Society.
In honor of Leamer’s championing of transparency in economic research, the Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences in 2015 launched a three-year series of awards known as the Leamer–Rosenthal Prizes for Open Social Science (which also honored UC Riverside psychologist Robert Rosenthal) to recognize academics committed to engaging in transparent research practices and pioneering new methods to increase the rigor of research.
In 2016, at the awarding of the Leamer–Rosenthal Prizes for Open Social Science, Leamer shared his perspective on how the movement for research transparency had evolved over the years and new challenges on the horizon.
A new approach: Storytelling and clarity in economic forecasting
In 2000, Leamer took on his most public-facing role, as director of the UCLA Anderson Forecast. The Forecast had been around for decades, and under Leamer’s tenure it remained one of the most respected yardsticks of the economies of California and the nation, a tool relied upon by economists, business people and media outlets throughout the country and around the world.
The basis for that expanded reach and credibility was partly the result of Leamer’s willingness to buck the trend of how economic forecasts were presented. The goal at UCLA, he said, was to focus not solely on the numbers — as most other forecasts did — but to frame projections within the context of the forces that cause the economy to sway in one direction or another.
“My view is that forecast numbers are unintelligible and meaningless,” Leamer told UCLA Magazine in 2001. “What you’ve got to do is show a picture that communicates the main message, and then you must tell the story as well. Don’t come here for the what of the forecast, which is the numbers. Come here for the why. I’m going to tell you why I think this; if you listen to me, and if you agree, you’re going to understand my message.”
Diana Koenigsberg
“Don’t come here for the what of the forecast,” Leamer was fond of saying. “Come here for the why.”
“There was an important element of storytelling in his methodology and approach,” said Sebastian Edwards a friend and professor at UCLA Anderson. “There had to be a narrative, supported by a combination of technical and nontechnical tools. But for the narrative to be persuasive, very sophisticated statistical techniques were needed, and he was one of the strongest statisticians in the profession from a technical point of view. The narratives he built were anchored on solid theory.”
Even his theoretical approach diverged from the mainstream. As he had throughout his career, Leamer argued against convention, contending that most economic theories and forecasts were based on the assumption that long-term economic trends would continue to repeat themselves. And while repeating events were an important element in forecasting, there were countless other unpredicted influences — embargoes, wars, assassinations, droughts, government investments and new policies — that played major roles, he said.
“One of Ed’s most important contributions was to emphasize that economic data come from non-repeated events, and therefore the methodology of interpretation of statistical analysis of that data must perforce be different than that applied in the natural sciences,” said Jerry Nickelsburg, who worked alongside Leamer at the Forecast before succeeding him as director. “That perspective made a significant difference in the application of economics to policy issues.”
A hat in the ring: Leamer for VP
At the tail end of his tenure with the Forecast, Leamer entered politics, joining a ticket with Boston University economist and former UCLA faculty member Laurence Kotlikoff as a write-in candidate for vice president of the U.S.
While he had no illusions of winning, Leamer saw his candidacy an opportunity to bring to the fore what he felt were key economic issues, including better employment prospects for college and high school graduates, help in alleviating the debt load of college students, and a rethinking of Social Security and Medicare.
“Economists are taught to think logically and clearly about all the potential impacts of a policy — not just the surface impact, but that which is unexpected,” he said in an interview with UCLA Newsroom at the time. “A famous 19th-century French economist named Frederic Bastiat said, ‘There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.’”
Nobel laureates and others pay tribute
UCLA
Just weeks before Leamer died, nearly 200 colleagues, friends and family members gathered online to pay him tribute. Those in attendance included James Heckman, Lars Hansen and Thomas Sargent, all recipients of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics — for which Leamer himself had at times been proposed as a candidate — along with dozens of fellow economists, a group that included many of his former students.
Leamer once said that the most difficult thing a person can do is engage in deep thought. His brother, the journalist and author Laurence Leamer, echoed that sentiment in reference to Ed at the end of the tribute.
“The greatest adventure is the intellectual adventure,” Laurence said of his brother. “And he has climbed Everest, run the four-minute mile and swam the English Channel.”
Leamer is survived by his wife, Ama Neel, a UCLA Anderson alumnus, his children, grandchildren and other family members.
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