Tracking the Economy
June 7, 1993</br></br>Labor Department reports on May consumer and producer prices should show that recent inflation fears are overdone, economists say.</br></br>The producer price index to be released this week probably will reveal a scant 0.1% or 0.2% rise in May prices at the wholesale level, said Jeff Thredgold, chief economist for Albany, N.Y.-based KeyCorp.</br></br>Recent jumps in the producer and consumer price indices, capped by a 0.6% rise in the April producer price index, heightened worries that inflation was making a comeback after remaining well under control in 1992.</br></br>But the price increases aren't sustainable, Mr. Thredgold said. "There is still enough slack in the global and domestic economies to constrain any increases in domestic inflation pressures for the balance of the year," he added.