The Economic Club of Minnesota (ECOM) provides a high-profile, non-partisan platform for national and international leaders in business, government and public policy to present their ideas on how Minnesota can better compete in the global economy and how America can most effectively provide world leadership on economic and strategic issues.
The Economic Club of Minnesota opened its season with a standout guest: Dr. Gianrico Farrugia, President and CEO of Mayo Clinic. Dr. Farrugia made Mayo's impact on our state hard to ignore. Mayo Clinic is Minnesota's top employer and has trained and retained 66% of the physicians practicing in Rochester.
Dr. Farrugia's message was clear: excellence in care and economic strength for Minnesota are one story, not two. How big is Mayo's economic footprint? Bigger than you might guess, and larger than the entire Minnesota tourism industry. He also shared how Mayo is putting AI to work, turning a 30-minute lab process into a matter of seconds.
18 May 2026
Dr. Donald Boudreaux
George Mason University economist Don Boudreaux took the stage at the Economic Club of Minnesota on May 11, 2026, as a myth-buster with a simple but powerful challenge: compared to what? In his presentation on Trump's second-term tariffs, Boudreaux cut through the political noise by stacking 2025's economic performance against hard benchmarks, including 2024 and Trump's own first term in 2017. The numbers told a sobering story. Nonfarm employment grew at just 0.5% in 2025 versus 1.6% in 2017, manufacturing employment actually declined, unemployment rose, and all three major stock indices trailed their 2017 post-election performance.
Boudreaux also shed light on a broader truth that rarely makes headlines: by historical standards, American households are dramatically better off than they were decades ago, with real net worth 80% higher than in 2001 and more than double what it was in 1994. His message was clear and grounded in evidence rather than ideology. Whether tariffs get credit or blame, the facts demand more than talking points. For an audience of Minnesota business leaders, policymakers, and students, Boudreaux delivered exactly what the Economic Club is known for: a speaker who moves the conversation well beyond the soundbites.
13 Apr 2026
Professor Mari Pangestu
Against a backdrop of surging tariffs, fracturing alliances, and rising protectionist sentiment on both sides of the Atlantic and the Pacific, the Economic Club of Minnesota gathered to celebrate someone who has spent her entire career swimming against that current. Dr. Mari Elka Pangestu, economist, former cabinet minister, World Bank managing director, and now Indonesia's Special Envoy for International Trade and Multilateral Cooperation, received the Bill Frenzel Champion of Free Trade Award.
The honor could not have come at a sharper moment. As Minnesota companies navigate the whiplash of new U.S. tariffs and retaliatory measures reshaping global supply chains, Pangestu offered something rarer than policy prescriptions: a long view, anchored in decades of experience navigating trade negotiations from Jakarta to Geneva to Washington.
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