Goldman Sachs chief economist earns ASU’s top forecasting award for third time

Arizona State University’s W. P. Carey School of Business has awarded the 2025 Lawrence R. Klein Award for Blue Chip Forecast Accuracy to Jan Hatzius, chief economist and head of Global Investment Research at Goldman Sachs. This award is highly regarded as one of the best-known and longest-standing achievements in economic forecasting.

Known for having the most accurate U.S. economic forecasts from 2021 to 2024, Hatzius is being recognized for an unprecedented third time (previously in 2009 and 2011) and will be presented the award on Wednesday, Oct. 15, at the University Club of New York. As part of the ceremony, Hatzius will share perspectives on the macroeconomic outlook. A livestream of the award ceremony will also be available, free for the public to view.

The award is judged and sponsored by the W. P. Carey School of Business in partnership with the W. P. Carey Foundation. The winner is selected based on the accuracy of forecasts published in the Blue Chip Economic Indicators newsletter, compiled and edited by Haver Analytics Inc. Analysts whose projections appeared in the Blue Chip Economic Indicators newsletter in January of the four prior years are eligible for the award.

"It is an honor to receive the prestigious Lawrence R. Klein Award for Blue Chip Forecast Accuracy on behalf of the Goldman Sachs economics team. It reflects our shared commitment to delivering analytically ambitious research with out-of-consensus conclusions in a fast-paced environment where time to market is of the essence," said Hatzius. "Together, we strive to help clients navigate an increasingly complex global economy."

Ohad Kadan, Charles J. Robel Dean and W. P. Carey Distinguished Chair in Business, will present Hatzius with his award, which will be followed by Hatzius' remarks.

"Jan Hatzius is now the only three-time winner, and he managed this in an environment buffeted by a significant spike in inflation," says Professor of Economics Dennis Hoffman, director of the Office of the University Economist at ASU.

"While many economists were expecting slow growth to continue in 2021, as the pandemic eased, Jan was among the very few to anticipate a surge in GDP that year. As measured by average errors for key variables, his forecasts were consistently more accurate than the consensus of the 50 contributors to Blue Chip Economic Indicators. I congratulate Jan on this significant accomplishment."

Hatzius joined Goldman Sachs in 1997 in the Frankfurt, Germany, office before transferring to New York in 1999. Hatzius is the No. 1 ranked economist in the annual Institutional Investor Fixed-Income survey in both the global and U.S. economics categories. He and his team have held No. 1 positions in the Institutional Investor survey every year since 2012.

Hatzius earned a DPhil in economics from Oxford University, as well as degrees from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.