Business Leaders' Optimism Rises in Quarter

Washington, DC, December 4, 2007--Business leaders remained relatively optimistic about the economy for the next six months, according to Business Roundtable’s fourth quarter 2007 CEO Economic Outlook Survey.

The CEO Economic Outlook Index, which indicates how CEOs believe the economy will perform in the six months ahead, improved moderately, rising more than two points from last quarter’s 77.4 to 79.5.

“This quarter’s survey suggests that CEOs, as a whole, still see the economy as steady and that the vast majority expect their sales, capital spending and employment levels to either increase or remain steady in the first half of 2008,” said Harold McGraw III, chairman of Business Roundtable and chairman, president and CEO of The McGraw-Hill Companies.

“These latest results demonstrate tempered CEO confidence with a slight rebounding of expectations since last quarter.”

In response to the annual question on cost pressures facing their businesses, a majority of CEOs cited energy and health care expenditures, equally, as their greatest fiscal pressures.

Business Roundtable, an association of chief executive officers of leading corporations, represents a combined workforce of more than 10 million employees and $4.5 trillion in annual revenues.

This year’s survey marked the first in which health care and energy were equally identified as the top cost pressures for CEOs with 32% of respondents identifying health care and 32% identifying energy. The concern over energy costs has doubled from last year, when 16% of CEOs cited energy expenditures as the top cost.

Following energy and health care, other CEO cost pressures in this year's survey were material costs (17%), litigation costs (10%), labor costs (5%), and capital costs (1%).