The Economic Report of the President is an annual report written by the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors. It overviews the nation's economic progress using text and extensive data appendices. The Economic Report of the President is transmitted to Congress no later than ten days after the submission of the Budget of the United States Government.

Overview: The events of 2002 brought new challenges for the U.S. economy and for America’s economic policy. Efforts to strengthen homeland security and prosecute the war against terrorism placed new demands on the economy.

The recovery from the 2000-01 economic slowdown continued, but with an unsatisfactory pace of job creation. These developments make it all the more important to undertake policies that promote growth, both in the United States and in the global economy.

Reliance on markets is key to enhancing growth. Thanks to the flexibility of markets, consumers, businesses, workers, and investors can continuously adapt to changing economic circumstances. The market constantly reshapes and redirects economic activity and economic output in response to changes in producers’ supplies and costs and in consumers’ incomes, demands, and the prices they face. In turn, the market itself evolves, as new information, new technologies, altered supplies, and other changes in the economic and physical environments pose new problems and open up new opportunities.Put simply, markets are dynamic.

This Report emphasizes the importance of dynamic markets in the U.S. economy and the need to design public policies so as to preserve and build on this dynamism. In particular, it discusses recent developments and policies in the areas of corporate governance, labor markets, regulation, taxation, and international economic development. It describes the lessons that have been learned from recognizing the dynamic flexibility of the U.S. economy, and how the President’s policy initiatives are putting those lessons into practice, to foster economic growth and prosperity in the United States and around the world.

Download Economic Report of the President, 2003

Pdf format, 2.6mb, 397pages.

Visit the President's Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) Official Website

Edward P. Lazear is Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA). There are 2 positions on the council currently vacant. The CEA was established by the Employment Act of 1946 to provide the President with objective economic analysis and advice on the development and implementation of a wide range of domestic and international economic policy issues.

The CEA includes three members who are appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. The President shall designate one of the members as Chairman. The duties and functions of the CEA include:

   1. to assist and advise the President in the preparation of the Economic Report;
   2. to gather timely and authoritative information concerning economic developments and economic trends, both current and prospective, to analyze and interpret such information for the purpose of determining whether such developments and trends are interfering, or are likely to interfere, with the achievement of such policy, and to compile and submit to the President studies relating to such developments and trends;
   3. to appraise the various programs and activities of the Federal Government for the purpose of determining the extent to which such programs and activities are contributing, and the extent to which they are not contributing, to the achievement of such policy, and to make recommendations to the President with respect thereto;
   4. to develop and recommend to the President national economic policies to foster and promote free competitive enterprise, to avoid economic fluctuations or to diminish the effects thereof, and to maintain employment, production, and purchasing power;
   5. to make and furnish such studies, reports thereon, and recommendations with respect to matters of Federal economic policy and legislation as the President may request.

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