Recession Here but Won’t Last Long, Forecasters Say

Seventy-five percent of the nation’s top economic forecasters contend the nation has sunk into a recession, although two-thirds expect it to be mild and end by April, according to a survey released today.

“Recession is here,” the National Assn. of Business Economists said in a report on its canvass of 51 professional forecasters.

The finding was a dramatic switch from an NABE survey just a year ago, when 62% of the forecasters said the economy would escape a recession through 1992. Just after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August, 45% of the forecasters said a recession either had begun or was imminent.

Some economists on the current panel who say the downturn has not yet begun predicted a recession would begin early next year.

Only 15% of the panel continue to hold to the “no recession” scenario.

The NABE survey mirrored an earlier survey this month by Blue Chip Economic Indicators. Eighty percent of the 52 prominent economists participating in that study said a recession would begin before year’s end. Five percent said it would begin in 1991.

Virtually all of the NABE forecasters who contend the economy is in recession say it began either in the third or the current quarter.

“The recession is also expected to be mild in historical terms, with the trough occurring in the first quarter of 1991,” the NABE report said. It projected economic growth to decline 1% in the current quarter and 0.8% in the next.