The Baseline Scenario is dedicated to explaining some of the key issues in the global economy and developing concrete policy proposals. Since it was launched in September 2008, this blog has been cited by virtually every major newspaper, Internet site, and blog covering economic and financial issues. It has been cited as one of the best economics blogs multiple times, including twice by The Wall Street Journal. The authors of the blog have also published articles in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Financial Times, The Los Angeles Times, BusinessWeek, The Atlantic, The New Republic, Democracy, and online in The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, Forbes, Bloomberg, Reuters, and The Huffington Post, among others. The blog itself was the subject of an interview with Simon Johnson in The Wall Street Journal and an article in Economic Principals. Content from The Baseline Scenario is republished by many sites all over the Internet.

Principal Authors

Simon Johnson is a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund. He has been a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and a member of the FDIC’s Systemic Resolution Advisory Committee, the Financial Research Advisory Committee of the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Financial Research (OFR), the Systemic Risk Council, and the Congressional Budget Office’s Panel of Economic Advisers. A longer bio is available at his MIT Sloan web page.

In his roles as a professor, research fellow and author, Professor Johnson’s speaking engagements include paid appearances before various business groups, including financial institutions and other companies, as well before other groups that may have a political agenda.  He is not on the board of any company, does not currently serve as a consultant to anyone, and does not work as an expert witness or conduct sponsored research.  His investment portfolio comprises cash and broadly diversified mutual funds; he does not trade stocks, bonds or derivatives actively.

James Kwak was the Jesse Root Professor of Law at the UConn School of Law until 2022. From 2019 to 2022 he was the chair of the Southern Center for Human Rights, of which he is a board member. For more information, see his personal website.

All opinions expressed here are those of the authors alone, and not necessarily those of the organizations with which they are affiliated or any other organization or person.