Livingston Survey Sees Contraction to Mid-2009

Gross domestic product will remain in negative territory the next two quarters, before posting growth in the last half of 2009, although it wasn’t specified when in the last half growth would return, according to the Livingston Survey, released yesterday by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

The 26 survey participants lowered their projections from the survey released earlier this year, and now see GDP dropping 2.2% for the last half of this year, as opposed to 1.7% growth seen in the June survey, while GDP for the first half of 2009, which they had seen 2.1% growth, is now expected to contract 0.9%.

Inflation expectations were also lowered, although the numbers for the current year were higher. Inflation, as measured by the consumer price index, for 2008 to 2009 is seen at 0.5%, compared to prior estimates of 2.6%, while when measured by the producer price index, the expectation is for a 0.8% decline, down from 2.4% in the earlier survey.

The 2007 to 2008 CPI number was 4.1% compared to 3.9% in the last survey, while the PPI prediction was 6.8% after 6.4% in the June survey. The new inflation predictions for 2009 to 2010 are 2.1% for CPI and 1.1% for PPI.

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
MORE FROM BOND BUYER