A media darling of sorts, UCF economist Sean Snaith's presentations across Central Florida tend to be an 80/20 mix of economic forecasting and comedy sketches. But the Director of the UCF Institute for Economic Forecasting means business - his forecasts have been named one of the nation's most accurate. This episode takes a "behind-the-scenes" look at Snaith's forecasting methods while exploring his thoughts on the state of the Florida economy in 2020.
 

Featured Guests

Sean Snaith - Director, UCF Institute for Economic Forecasting
Erika Hodges - Director, Communications & Marketing, UCF College of Business
Jessica Dourney - Assistant Director, Outreach & Engagement, UCF College of Business

Episode Highlights

1:48 - Paul Jarley introduces Sean Snaith
2:37 - What the Florida economy is going through
3:28 - Commentary from the "Mean Girls"
4:14 - Florida's housing market
07:04 - Sean Snaith: "King of the Nerds"
11:09 - Growth by industry in Florida
15:06 - Job and population growth in the state
17:01 - Questions from the audience
21:30 - Paul Jarley's final thoughts

 
Episode Transcription
Paul Jarley:                         Sean Snaith is central Florida's favorite economic forecaster. Sean has been named one of the nation's most accurate forecasters by Bloomberg News and as appeared on pretty much every media outlet from the Wall Street Journal to the BBC. But he has some very strange hobbies.

Sean Snaith:                       If you've heard me speak over the years, you know I have an affinity for SkyMall.

Paul Jarley:                         You remember SkyMall, It's the defunct inflight shopping catalog that survives on the internet. Well, Sean, he might just be their biggest fan.

Sean Snaith:                       The Dean called it a fetish, I think, last year, which, that sounds a little dirty.

Paul Jarley:                         He's also a bit of a diva who dreams of becoming a viral internet sensation?

Sean Snaith:                       So, everybody can't be a social influencer though. I mean, I think that's where they all want to be. I do too. Quite frankly, I've got 1300 on Twitter. I don't know what I can offer to them, but.

Paul Jarley:                         And he hates being handled, especially by the college's so called mean girls.

Sean Snaith:                       There's a group of, largely women, in the college of business and there'll be shaking you down for money here at the end of the event, but I like to refer to them collectively as the mean girls and they sort of followed me since middle school and they make fun of my clothing and my glasses and things like that.

Speaker 3:                           I don't know if you've seen his PowerPoint slides, but we think they date back to the mid 1980s.

Paul Jarley:                         Is Sean Snaith really worth all this trouble? Are those forecasts right? Or do those mean girls have a point?

Speaker 4:                           That is so fetch.

Speaker 5:                           Gretchen, stop trying to make fetch happen. It's not going to happen.

Paul Jarley:                         This issue is all about separating hype from fundamental change. I'm Paul Jarley, Dean of the College of Business here at UCF, I've got lots of questions. To get answers, I'm talking to people with interesting insights into the future of business. Have you ever wondered, is this really a thing? Onto our show.

Paul Jarley:                         This podcast is a condensed version of a talk Sean gave at our recent Dean Speaker Series,