Blog Post

By: Marin Christensen

The Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute has partnered with the Salt Lake Chamber to create CEOutlook, an economic confidence index informed by Utah’s leading business executives. The index is created by surveying these senior executives every quarter to “gauge the economic pulse of Utah’s business community.” Industries represented are chosen to proportionally represent Utah’s business sectors.

We completed our first year (four quarters) of surveys in 2017, and have created an index based on our preliminary data. As our director Natalie Gochnour explains, “The coming year will allow us to fine tune and evaluate the index to better understand its relationship to actual economic performance.”  The hope is that this index will provide a proverbial finger in the air to alert where the economy’s wind is blowing, and prepare us for emerging trends in the business community.

For more details regarding CEOutlook’s first year’s results and what will constitute the index, see the latest full report here.

The Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute assists the chamber in this endeavor by providing expert insight, index analytics, survey design and methodology, and data management.

Marin Christensen is a research associate at the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute.