Mark Andrew Skousen (; born October 19, 1947) is an American economist and writer. He currently teaches at Chapman University, where he is a Presidential Fellow at The George L. Argyros School of Business and Economics. He has previously taught at Columbia Business School, Mercy College, Barnard College, and Rollins College. Early life, education and family Skousen was born on October 19, 1947, in San Diego, California, and grew up in Portland, Oregon. Conservative political commentator and survival strategist Joel Skousen and linguist Royal Skousen are his older brothers. He is the nephew of W. Cleon Skousen, the conservative author and faith-based political theorist. Mark Skousen earned his B.A. and Master's degree in economics from Brigham Young University and his Ph.D. in economics from George Washington University in 1977. Skousen is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He, his wife Jo Ann, and their five children have lived in Washington, D.C.; Nassau, Bahamas; London, England; Orlando, Florida, New York City and Orange, California. Career Skousen was an economic analyst for the CIA from 1972 to 1975. He later worked as a consultant for IBM and Hutchinson Technology, and other companies. He was a columnist for Forbes magazine from 1997 to 2001, and has contributed articles to The Wall Street Journal as well as to various libertarian periodicals. He has been a speaker at investment conferences and has lectured for think tanks, From 2008 to 2010 he was a weekly contributor on CNBC's Kudlow & Company and has also appeared on C-SPAN Book TV and Fox News. Skousen has been the editor of the Forecasts & Strategies financial newsletter since 1980. He also is the editor of four trading services (Five Star Trader, High-Income Alert, Fast Money Alert, and The 1600 Alert.) and publishes the Investor CAFÉ weekly electronic newsletter. Economics Skousen is a proponent of Gross Output (GO), an economic concept used to measure total economic activity in the production of new goods and services in an accounting period. Skousen highlighted the concept in his work, The Structure of Production in 1990. Lecturing Skousen has lectured on economics and finance at Columbia Business School, Barnard College at Columbia University, Mercy College in New York, Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida and Chapman University in Orange, California. In April 2005, distance education provider Grantham University renamed its online School of Business "The Mark Skousen School of