MEET Dr. Christopher Thornberg 

Dr. Christopher Thornberg is one of California’s leading economists and Founding Partner of Beacon Economics, LLC. He holds a Ph.D in Business Economics from The Anderson School at UCLA and a B.S. degree in Business Administration from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He is widely quoted in the media, including The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune. He has appeared on NBC’s The Today Show, ABC’s Nightline, CNN, FOX News Channel and NPR.

At UCLA, Dr. Thornberg was an economist with the Anderson Forecast, where he regularly authored economic outlooks for California, Los Angeles and the East Bay. He went on to teach in the MBA program at UC San Diego’s Rady School of Business and at Thammasat University in Bangkok. He has also held a faculty position in the economics department at Clemson University.

Dr. Thornberg has served on the advisory board of Wall Street hedge fund Paulson & Co. since 2006. He was one of the earliest and most accurate predictors of the subprime mortgage market crash in 2007, and the global recession that followed. From 2008 to 2012 he served as chief economic advisor to the California State Controller’s Office and as Chair of State Controller John Chiang’s Council of Economic Advisors. He has been involved in a number of special studies measuring the effects of important events on the economy, such as the NAFTA treaty, California electricity crisis, port security, California’s water transfer programs and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Currently, Dr. Thornberg serves on the Residential Real Estate Committee at the University of San Diego’s Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate and the National Association of Business Economists’ quarterly outlook panel. He contributes to the consensus outlook of the Journal of Business Forecasting an serves on the boards of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, the Central City Association, the Asian Real Estate Association of America and America’s Edge, a nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening the economy through investments in youth and education.