Inflation Up to 4.7% In Quarter: Buoyed by Exports, GNP Holds to 3.1 % ...
Buoyed by a sharp improvement in the trade deficit, the U.S. economy expanded at a solid 3.1 percent annual rate in the second quarter.</br></br>4.7	percent rate, the highest level since the third quarter of 1982, the Commerce Department reported yesterday.</br></br>The rise in the gross national product, adjusted for inflation, was the smallest quarterly gain since the end of 1986, but it was welcomed by the Reagan administration and many private economists who believe growth must slow to keep inflation from taking off.</br></br>Meanwhile, Commerce also issued revised GNP figures for the last three years showing that real GNPÛÓthe nationÛªs total output of goods and servicesÛÓincreased 5 percent during 1987 rather than 4 percent. The estimate for inflation, as measured by the GNP price index, was revised upward only slightly, to 4 percent for the same period.</br></br>The increase in second-quarter GNP followed a 3.4 percent rate in the first quarter and a booming 6.1 percent rate in the fourth quarter of last year. Prior to the revisions announced yesterday, the first quarter rate had been put at 3.6 percent and the fourth-quarter rate at 4.8 percent.