Brian Wesbury is Chief Economist at First Trust Advisors L.P.
Brian has been a member of the Academic Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. In 2012, he was named a Fellow of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, TX, where he worked closely with its 4%-Growth Project. His writing appears in various magazines, newspapers, and blogs and he appears regularly on business TV, radio shows, and on podcasts talking about the economy and financial markets.
In 1995 and 1996, Brian served as Chief Economist for the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress. The Wall Street Journal ranked Brian the nation’s #1 U.S. economic forecaster in 2001, for his prediction of recession, USA Today ranked him as one of the nation’s top 10 forecasters in 2004 and Consensus Economics ranked First Trust’s economics team the #1 most accurate forecasters of the U.S. economy in 2022. Brian began his career in 1982 at Harris Bank in Chicago. Former positions include Vice President and Economist for the Chicago Corporation and Senior Vice President and Chief Economist for Griffin, Kubik, Stephens & Thompson.
Brian received an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management and a BA in Economics from the University of Montana. McGraw-Hill published his first book, The New Era of Wealth, in October 1999. His second book, It’s Not As Bad As You Think, was published in November 2009 by John Wiley & Sons.
In 2011, Brian received the University of Montana’s Distinguished Alumni Award. This award honors outstanding alumni who have “brought honor to the University, the state, or the nation.” There have been 267 recipients of this award out of a potential pool of 91,000 graduates.
