The U.S. economy should continue doing well through 2007 absent a major disruption, the head of a national business economics group said here yesterday.

"There is no recession around the corner," Stuart G. Hoffman, president of the National Association for Business Economics, told the group's Richmond chapter.

"We've got slower yet still good economic growth ahead of us," Hoffman said. His message, however, was not all feel-good.

People who have been satisfied if not complacent about the economy for the past several years are starting to take notice of some risks, said Hoffman, who is also chief economist for PNC Financial Services Group Inc. of Pittsburgh.

One big concern now is for that dirty word -- inflation. "Inflation fever is a little hotter than we'd like it to be," he said.

Interest rates are going up and will climb further as the Federal Reserve works to bring inflation under control. Hoffman said he expects the Fed to raise rates again this month and maybe once more later this summer to 5.5 percent, a level he said is not abnormally high.

Next year, inflation will slow down as the housing market and other parts of the economy start to cool, he said. There is a good chance that the Fed may start to cut rates next year.

The key thing for the U.S. economy is that all regions of the global economy are growing and have been for the past few years. That is great for the United States, Hoffman said, because it means there are foreign markets for U.S. companies to sell into.

Besides inflation, the risks to continued economic prosperity include the prospect of terrorist attacks, the Fed overdoing its efforts to control inflation, a continued rise in oil prices and a drop in the value of the dollar, he said.

People already seem to be responding to high oil prices and $3 gasoline by reducing demand. However, if oil prices were to rise much more, they might near a point that would break the economy, he said.

As for the dollar, its attraction for foreign investors helps keep the economy rolling. If the dollar were to lose its luster, though, the economy could suffer.

Borrowing from abroad has helped balance the country's combined trillion dollar-plus trade and budget deficits. American savings cannot come close to covering that amount, he said.

Americans spend a lot of money and are very good at it, Hoffman said. On the other hand, foreigners, such as the Chinese and Japanese, save a lot of money. If something were to upset that balance, that could be a negative for the U.S. economy, he said.

If the dollar were to tumble, it would be less attractive to invest in the United States. One thing that might precipitate the dollar's fall would be adoption of protectionist trading policies, he said.