Recession in 2023? Maybe Not, as Odds of Economic Improvement Are Rising

Freedonia’s in-house economics group develops our own economic outlook with all the indicators that underpin every Freedonia market research data series. Still, we all know that perception can sometimes effect trends as much as a fresh official government announcements about inflation rates, unemployment levels, and GDP trends.

On that front, business perceptions seem to be improving. National Association of Business Economics (NABE) released a new survey of business conditions where fewer believed the US was either already in a recession or had a more-than-even chance it would enter one in the coming year. The total ascribing to either belief fell from 64% of respondents to 56% of them over the last 3 months. The results also showed they expect inflation to ease in their industries and within their own pricing this year.

Overall, several fundamentals are improving. For instance, inflationary trends have been easing over the past 6 months, even in core areas such as food and energy that saw dramatic increases in the first half of 2022. Additionally, supply chain challenges are clearing up in many areas. Sky high shipping costs and supply shortages were never expected to remain as long-term stick issues even as the exact readjustment timeline has been unclear and evolving since the pandemic era began.

Freedonia analysts continue to watch data trends and underlying behaviors that point to perceptions that could run along with or contrary to the data and to take those opinions into account in all of their forecasting.

For more information and discussion of opportunities, see The Freedonia Group’s extensive collection of off-the-shelf research.   Freedonia Custom Research is also available for questions requiring tailored market intelligence.