Leading economists predicted sluggish US economic growth through June, but said the Federal Reserve's recent interest-rate cuts would help prevent a full-blown recession, according to a survey released on Saturday.
"Despite surprisingly healthy rates of real GDP growth during the middle quarters of this year, the consensus predicts the pace of activity is poised to slow considerably in the current quarter and remain quite modest through the first half of 2008," the monthly Blue Chip Economic Indicators newsletter said.
"The projected slowing in the rate of growth in the near-term will leave the economy vulnerable to unanticipated shocks, but our panelists currently say an outright recession will be avoided, putting the odds of such an outcome at only one-in-three."
For the current fourth quarter, economists polled by the group expect real gross domestic product growth will slow to a 1.7 percent annual rate, down 0.1 point from the October forecast.
That would be less than half the unexpectedly robust 3.9 percent growth rate recorded in the third quarter. For 2008, the consensus growth forecast for real GDP remained at 2.4 percent, which would put the economy below the long-term trend growth rate of 3 percent for a third consecutive year.
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