Keith Schwer

Director, UNLV Center for Business and Economic Research

Interviewed June 24 at the Center for Business and Economic Research at UNLV

I think of you as the Prince of Gloomy News.

I took a public-finance class from Charles Schultz. Not the cartoonist but the economist. He said the role of the economist was to be the bearer of unpleasant news. So it kind of goes with the territory. These are absolutely very unusual times for us, unfortunately.

Did you have any inkling before the rest of us that things were taking a turn for the worse?

You can’t have housing prices go up 50 percent in one year and have any possible inclination that that’s normal behavior or normal economic activity. That’s a very clear signal there’s an imbalance. Having said that, I did keep out hope with the slowdown in residential construction that the significant amount of activity on the Strip would take up the slack. And it did.

Housing gave us a signal. But it didn’t really tell us all of the financial difficulties that were to follow.

Are there things the community could do to expedite our time in the downturn?

I think there’s a yes and no on that. I don’t think there’s much you can in the public sector. Las Vegas is what it is. School districts are struggling, the university is making adjustments, police, fire … with that there’s not much money left. Having said that, we know the real engine of economic growth is travel and growth, and indeed we are seeing a substantial amount of activity. Casinos have lowered their prices, they’re out advertising. They’re offering very attractive tourist packages.

Are people jumping on it?

It’s always hard to measure what would have happened if they hadn’t done that. But I think you can see it has attracted people. … Business is reacting, and that’s what you would want. But we don’t know how much things would have been worse if they hadn’t, and we don’t know what the changes would have been if they had reacted quicker.

When you do your work do you ever hope—behind your detached professional economist’s gaze—that the numbers about the economy are better?

Oh, sure. I think you go into economics because you kind of understand the seriousness of the subject. If you look at the current unemployment rate, that says 1 out of 10. We even know that the 90 percent who are employed are not working all the hours we want to. What are the implications of that? There could be families there …