A*Q
发帖数: 1579 | 1 WASHINGTON (AP) -- Confronted with an economy that has decidedly
underperformed this year, economists are scaling back their growth forecasts
for 2011 and next year.
In their latest forecast, top economists with the National Association for
Business Economics predict that the economy will grow 1.7 percent this year
-- down from the group's May prediction of 2.8 percent expansion. For 2012,
the group is forecasting growth of 2.3 percent, compared to a May forecast
of 3.2 percent growth.
The new survey, released Monday, is in line with the outlook of other
economists who have marked down growth prospects to reflect an economy that
has struggled this year to deal with a spike in gasoline prices, production
disruptions stemming from Japan's earthquake, a flare-up of Europe's debt
problems and a prolonged debate over America's debt ceiling.
"A wide variety of factors were seen as restraining growth, including low
consumer and business confidence," said Gene Huang, the president-elect of
NABE and one of 52 professional forecasters who participated in the survey.
"Panelists are very concerned about high unemployment, federal deficits and
the European sovereign debt crisis," said Huang, who is chief economist at
FedEx Corp.
The survey was done before President Barack Obama appeared before Congress
on Thursday to unveil a new $447 billion plan to jump-start job growth
through a combination of tax cuts and government spending.
The latest NABE outlook underscores the problems facing an economy that many
economists fear could be in danger of slipping into another recession.
The expectations for overall economic growth, as measured by the gross
domestic product, for both 2011 and 2012 were trimmed by a percentage point
from the May forecast. The May estimates had been trimmed from February when
the NABE analysts were forecasting growth of 3.3 percent this year.
The economy grew 3 percent in 2010, the first full year after the country
emerged from the 2007-2009 recession, but slowed to an annual rate of just 0
.7 percent in the first six months of this year.
Because of the slow growth, the NABE forecasters don't expect much
improvement in the unemployment rate, which in August was stuck at 9.1
percent, a month when the economy didn't create any net new jobs.
For all of 2011, the economists are forecasting the unemployment rate will
average 9 percent and will improve only slightly to 8.7 percent in 2012. In
May, the NABE panel had projected unemployment would average 8.7 percent
this year and 8.2 percent next year.
Job growth was projected to average 124,000 per month this year, instead of
the 190,000 average monthly job gains the economists had forecast in May.
Next year's average job growth was put at 162,000, instead of the 202,000
job gains forecast in May.
The economy needs to add at least 250,000 jobs a month to rapidly bring down
the unemployment rate. The rate has been above 9 percent in all but two
months since May 2009.
The NABE panel forecast that builders would start work on 590,000 new homes
this year, no improvement from last year's weak pace, while sales of new
cars was put at 12.6 million units, up a modest 8.6 percent from the 11.6
million new vehicles sold in 2010.
The economists did see a little better outlook for oil prices, which they
projected would average $90 per barrel in December, down from a forecast of
$105 per barrel in May. Oil was trading Friday around $87 per barrel.
The new NABE forecast was prepared for the group's annual conference, being
held this year in Dallas
黄 赓 博士 GENE HUANG, Ph.D. 黄赓博士现任美国联邦快递集团（FedEx
Corp）副总裁兼首席经济学家。他和他的团队负责对公司经济、企业风险和战略事务进
行研究和分析，并且跟踪和监测联邦快递服务的所有行业和地区。 作为全球知名
的经济学家，黄赓博士是“蓝筹共识小组”（Blue Chip Consensus Panel）、《华尔
街日报》经济学家小组、《商业周刊》商业展望小组和美国广播公司经济学家小组成员
。黄赓还是美国商业经济学家会议（于2009年至2010年担任主席）、美国国家商务经济
事务理事会和欧洲经济学家委员会和哈佛产业经济学家小组等最具影响力的经济学家团
体成员。同时，他还担任复旦大学管理学院特聘教授、世界经济论坛（World Economic
Forum）国际议题理事会委员和美联储（Federal Reserve）交通运输理事会委员。他
曾任美国国家商业经济协会（NABE）董事，现任该协会基金会董事。 作为最著名
的经济预测家之一，黄赓博士在2002年被《商业周刊》评为“全美最准确的经济预测家
”。2006年，他又在《华尔街日报》“全美顶尖经济预测家”排名中位列第二。
黄赓博士的职业生涯始于1987年，当时他任职于华尔街的一家投资理财公司。此后，他
先后服务于多家大型工业企业和国际知名研究机构。他拥有美国耶鲁大学硕士学位和宾
夕法尼亚大学博士学位。他在上海复旦大学获得法学士学位。 黄赓出版过两本产
业经济学专著，并且在美国、日本和欧洲的经济与政策类专业刊物上发表过多篇文章。
他经常受世界主要媒体邀请发表经济评论。 |
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