Business: 78 Outlook: One More Good Year

The TIME Board of Economists sees additional growth—and inflation

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be.

—Ecclesiastes 1:9

The members of the TIME Board of Economists put it in more modern language, but that essentially is the forecast they are making for 1978. Despite all the doubts and uncertainties gripping consumers, businessmen and investors, the economists predict a year almost uncannily similar to 1977—a solid though unspectacular growth in production, incomes and profits, another strong rise in the number of people working, but no great reduction in unemployment. Inflation will...