New Trade Figures Belie Gloom Seers: Difficult to Interpret May Point to Advance
A growing number of economists are predicting recession in the first half of 1963 but they are contradicted, tentatively at least, bv the recent trend in leading</br></br>The current issue of Business Cycle Developments, issued by the Census Bureau this week, shows (17 per cent of the indicators on which information was available pointing upward in September.</br></br>The Bureau's 30 lending indicators are those which historically tend to change direction anywhere from a month to a year or more in advance of the general level of business.</br></br>Economists consider them more useful in predicting the future course of the economy than roughly coincident indicators such as personal income and unemployment, which tell us where we arc today, or lagging indicators such as factory inventories and consumer debt, which tend to tell' us where we have been.</br></br>of a broad prediction made at a meeting of the influential Business Council at Hot Springs, Va., last weekend. The Council was told that a ÛÏgreat majorityÛ of its panel of 20 professional economists expects a minor and shortlived recession beginning early next year.