This week on the podcast Matt sits down with Michael Brown, Principal US Economist for Visa and member of the Walton College’s Dean’s Executive Advisory Board. They begin the conversation with Michael sharing how he got interested in economics during his undergraduate studies at the University of Arkansas, what he does in his role at Visa in the macroeconomic space and how he synthesizes so much data down to communicate it to their clients. They go on to discuss the methods of forecasting the US economy and also the challenges and trade offs associated with short term versus medium term versus long term predictions. They also touch on the most challenging pieces to forecast. They end the discussion with a focus on supply chain and the macro picture of the economy as well as some medium to long run trends on the consumer side of the economy that Michael sees coming up.