Biographical Profile
Joel L. Naroff, Ph. D.
President, Naroff Economic Advisors
Chief Economist, Commerce Bank
Joel L. Naroff is the President and founder of Naroff Economic Advisors, a strategic economic consulting firm. He advises companies across the country on the risks and opportunities that economic developments may have on the organization’s operating environment.
On a consulting basis, Joel serves as Chief Economist for Commerce Bank in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. He advises Commerce customers on a broad range of domestic and international economic issues and provides up-to-the minute insight regarding local, national and global financial trends and developments. He is also an economic advisor to Trefoil Properties, Inc., a real estate investment trust, and an economic consultant to Cumberland Advisors, a personal service, money management firm headquartered in New Jersey.
An accomplished public speaker, Joel’s humor and unique ability to make economics understandable have brought him a wide following. He gives talks on national, international, regional and industry specific topics. He has also frequently been asked to play the role of futurist and has discussed the potential impact of evolving economic trends on a variety of industries.
Joel is a nationally recognized economic forecasting expert and is a member of the Blue Chip, Business Week, USA Today/CNBC and Survey of Professional Forecasters panels. In 2004 he was named one of the top four economic forecasters in the United States by Bloomberg Business News and one of the top ten economic forecasters by USA Today. He is often quoted in the national press, including Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, Business Week, Bloomberg News, Barron’s, Reuters, the Associated Press and CBS/MarketWatch. He has appeared on The World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, CNBC and local television stations including Channels 3, 6 and 10 in Philadelphia and NJN. Joel does weekend business commentary for KYW Newsradioand can be frequently heard on national news radio networks, including CBS, CNN, Bloomberg and Wall Street Radio.
Before starting Naroff Economic Advisors, Joel worked in the banking industry for fourteen years and was Chief Economist at First Fidelity Bancorp and First Union Corp. Because of his expertise in both national and regional economics, the states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the City of Philadelphia and a large number of other local governments and school boards have requested his assistance on financial and economic development issues.
Prior to moving into banking, Joel was a tenured professor in the School of Management at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He published extensively in academic journals and books on regional economics and financial and corporate management.
Joel received bachelors’ degrees in economics and chemistry from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and his Ph.D. in economics from BrownUniversity. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Economy League, teaches at the Central Atlantic Advanced School of Banking, is a past Chair of the American Bankers Association’s Economic Advisory Committee and is a past President of the Philadelphia Council of Business Economists.