Richard Burkhauser, Cornell University professor of policy analysis and management, has been invited to speak at President Bush's Economic Forum at Baylor University, Waco, Texas, next Tuesday, Aug. 13.

The forum will be attended by government policy-makers, small investors, business owners, industry experts, workers, business ethicists, union members, corporate executives, economists and business students. They are expected to discuss current economic issues as well as the president's plans to achieve economic growth.

"We have to put the right kind of policies in place to get us out of the recession and back on the path of economic growth. This meeting, in part, is to discuss those policies," says Burkhauser.

Burkhauser has been asked to speak at the session on small investors and retirement security because of his expertise in the areas of Social Security, disability, retirement and pension policies. Glenn Hubbard, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, will chair this discussion session.

The forum is designed to be in a relaxed setting, with each member of the forum engaging in an interactive debate with the president and his Cabinet members.

"If I get the chance, I'm going to urge the president not to yield to those people who would argue that we turn back the clock and go back to the way private pensions were structured 20 years ago because one pension plan – Enron – failed," Burkhauser says. "This is going to be a major issue over the next year as we try to reform the way defined contribution pension plans are regulated without unreasonably limiting the freedom of workers to choose how to invest their pension funds."

Eight breakout discussion sessions will begin the forum at 9 a.m. on Tuesday morning, with Bush scheduled to spend about 20 minutes at each session. Among the key economic issues reportedly to be considered are economic recovery and job creation, corporate responsibility and health care. The creation of jobs, as well as saving, investing and educational opportunities will be among the important topics to be discussed, says Burkhauser.

"We are in a difficult time right now; we had eight years of continuous economic growth that ended in 2000," he says. "Some of us back then were warning that this wasn't going to last forever and that we should be ready for the inevitable downside of the business cycle and its impact on the stock market and on our private pension portfolios. Now that it is here, we should not overreact. For those who are not going to retire for many years, the best thing to do is nothing. A balanced portfolio of stocks remains the best way to save for retirement over the long run. If the current recession is similar to the ones we have experienced over the last two decades, and I believe it is, we will be out of it soon."

Burkhauser, who received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago and joined the Cornell faculty in 1998, is chairman of the Department of Policy Analysis and Management in the College of Human Ecology. For more than two decades, his research has focused on the impact of government policy on the behavior and income distribution of Americans. He currently is co-principal investigator of a Cornell center studying the impact of government policies on the employment of working-age people with disabilities.

This article was prepared by Cornell News Service student intern Nancy Chan.