The Economy: Drawing A Bead On The Future

Business Week Magazine
December 25 Cover Story

We put four key economic questions to 58 experts for a sneak peak at the year to come

Smart investors always ask plenty of questions. Getting the rightanswers is the hard part, especially answers about the future of the economy--and the windshifts that can make or break your portfolio. BusinessWeek offers some help on what we think are the four key questions that will play the biggest roles in shaping the investment climate in 2007.


We gathered 58 experts and their best estimates for our annual outlook survey. The overview looks like this: On average, the economists see an investor-friendly economy, with growth cooling to 2.6% from the end of 2006 to the end of 2007. That's a notch slower than the 3.1% pace expected for 2006, but they project a slight pickup in the pace as the year progresses. The slowdown will cause the unemployment rate to drift up--though not by much--from 4.5% to 4.8%. The slump in home construction is expected to end by midyear, yet by the end of the year, home prices are still projected to dip nationally by an average of 1.7%.
more