Post-war Uncertainty Lingers

摘要

The war with Iraq has wound down, but uncertainty over the outlook for the economy remains. "The pace of economic activity continued to be lackluster during March and the first two weeks of April," the Federal Reserve Board said in its April Beige Book survey. The Conference Board's index of leading economic indicators slipped 0.2 percent in March, a slight improvement from the revised 0.5-percent decline in February. Joblessness, layoffs, and sluggish business and consumer spending have acted as drags on the economy. Consumer sentiment, based on the University of Michigan index, increased in mid-April from mid-March as the war's outcome became clear, but whether this signals a rebound in consumer spending is uncertain - after the Gulf War, consumer spending increased but then subsided.