Only a minority of economists correctly predicted that the U.S. economy would contract last quarter. The number who expect it to keep shrinking in the current period is even smaller.
Gross domestic product declined for a second straight quarter in the April-June period, the government reported last week, cueing a debate about whether the U.S. is in a recession. The 0.9% decline compared with a median forecast for growth of 0.4% in Bloomberg’s survey of economists.
For the current period, economists are more upbeat — the median expectation is for growth of 1.7% — and there are fewer negative numbers in the survey, with only five out of 55 participants anticipating another contraction.
