Tom Stark

Tom Stark has dedicated his career to developing tools that use data to tell the economy’s future. He co-created and runs the Bank’s Real-Time Data Research Center, which is responsible for producing a real-time data set for macroeconomists. The Real-Time Data Research Center feeds into several influential Bank economic products, including the Survey of Professional Forecasters, the Livingston Survey, the Aruoba-Diebold-Scotti Business Conditions Index, the GDPplus measure of U.S. GDP, and the Aruoba Term Structure of Inflation Expectations. Tom also provides oversight for the Tealbook (formerly Greenbook) Data Sets and the Projections for the Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress.

Tom believes that economic theories are best validated when they can produce accurate forecasts. He had no idea when he began constructing real-time data sets in the early 1990s that his work would become so widely appreciated and cited around the world.

Tom holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in economics from Temple University, and graduated maxima cum laude from La Salle University with a bachelor’s degree in finance.