The US National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) could declare today the US economy has entered a recession, the Wall Street Journalreported in its online edition.
The paper said the NBER, considered the official arbiter of recessions, has scheduled a conference call for this afternoon during which members are expected to say the longest US expansion on record gave way to recession in March.
The report said some members of the private Cambridge, Massachusetts-based group said a decision today is not a foregone conclusion but that it nevertheless expected some kind of announcement.
"A public announcement of the decision may take a few more days", the Journalsaid.
Most economists loosely define a recession as two quarters of economic contraction, but the NBER uses a more complex definition, saying a recession is a significant fall in activity across a broad range of sectors that lasts more than a few months.
The agency caused a stir earlier this year when a memo it issued cited "the possibility that a recession began recently," but it has steered away from such language lately.