Frankel said the prevailing view among economists is that the recession is about two-thirds through.
“The common forecasts that are out there are that the economy is up for recovery in 2002,” Frankel said. “I don’t see any particular reason to deviate for that.”
But Frankel said he doesn’t expect an immediate and dramatic boom next year.
“Some of the predictions for rapid growth out there seem to me a little
optimistic,” he said.
Frankel has been on the committee for eight years, and has never before had to participate in a discussion about the turning of the economy.
“There’s sort of a joke in universities that the best committees to be
appointed to are the ones that never meet, and up until now it was this one,” Frankel said.
—Staff writer Lauren R. Dorgan can be reached at dorgan@fas.harvard.edu.