Jan Hatzius is the chief economist of investment bank Goldman Sachs. Notable for his bearish forecasts prior to the Financial crisis of 2007–2008, he is a two-time winner of the Lawrence R. Klein Award for the most accurate US economic forecast over the prior four years. He has also won a number of other forecasting awards, including the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Institutional Investor annual forecaster rankings.
Born in Heidelberg, Hatzius attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. He earned a Doctor of Philosophy in economics from the University of Oxford in 1995 (advisor: Stephen Nickell). He has also worked as a research fellow at the London School of Economics.
Hatzius joined Goldman Sachs in 1997 as an associate economist in the Frankfurt office and moved to New York in 1999. He became a managing director in 2004, and succeeded former chief US economist William Dudley in 2005. In 2008, Hatzius was named to Goldman Sachs′ list of partners. In 2011, Hatzius became the firm's chief economist. He is also the head of both the Global Economics group and Americas Macro Research.
Hatzius is married with three children, and resides in New York City's Upper West Side.