Economist

WASHINGTON — The number of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits fell by 4,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 323,000, a five-year low. Layoffs have returned to pre-recession levels, a trend that could lead to more hiring. The Labor Department said Thursday that the less volatile four-week average dropped 6,250 to 336,750. That the fewest since November 2007, one month before the Great Recession began. Applications are a proxy for layoffs. Weekly applications have fallen...

WASHINGTON — A measure of the U.S. economy's future health rose solidly in April, buoyed by a sharp rise in applications to build homes and a better job market. The Conference Board said Friday that its index of leading indicators increased 0.6 percent last month to a reading of 95. That followed a 0.2 percent decline in March. The index is intended to signal economic conditions three to six months out. Conference Board economist Ken Goldstein said the index is 3.5 percent higher at an...

Norman Frumkin, 81, an economist who worked for federal and private organizations before retiring from the Office of Management and Budget in 1985, died of cancer Dec. 23 at his home in Washington. A son, Jacob Frumkin, confirmed the death. Mr. Frumkin began his federal career in 1961 as an economist with the Department of Commerce. He was later an economist with the National Planning Association and principal officer of Norman Frumkin Associates. He joined the Office of Management and Budget in 1979.

PRAGUE — Valtr Komarek's son says the left-wing Czech politician and economist who helped overthrow the country's communist regime has died at age 82. His son Martin, a journalist for the Mlada Fronta Dnes daily, said Komarek died Thursday in a Prague hospital. Born Aug. 10, 1930, in the southeast town of Hodonin, Komarek became a Communist Party member after World War II. From 1964-67, he served as an adviser to the Argentine revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, then minister of...

John Gross economist John Gross, 76, an economist who worked for the federal government for 35 years, died March 15 at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda. He had heart ailments, said his wife, Anthula Gross. Mr. Gross retired in 1997 as a division chief in the Energy Information Administration, where he had worked for two decades. He previously was a supervisory economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. John Gross was born in Atlantic City, N.J. He served as a radar operator in the Army from 1954 to 1956 and received a bachelor's...

Genevieve B. Wimsatt, 98, an economist at the U.S. Commerce Department for 36 years, died June 23 at Asbury Methodist Village in Gaithersburg. She had dementia. Ms. Wimsatt retired in 1970 and worked briefly as a public policy researcher at the Brookings Institution. Genevieve Beckwith Wimsatt was a native Washingtonian and a 1927 graduate of the old Central High School. In the early 1930s, she received a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in economics from George Washington University.

Robert B. Bretzfelder Economist Robert B. Bretzfelder, 83, who retired in 1986 from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis as a writer and analyst and then co-owned and operated a photography service, died Oct. 15 at the Washington Home hospice. He had cancer, said a son, Marc Bretzfelder. Before joining the Bureau of Economic Analysis in 1970, Mr. Bretzfelder was an economist with the Library of Congress, the Labor Department and the Federal Reserve Board. From 1988 to 2009, Mr. Bretzfelder and his wife were partners in...

Lawrence Posner, 75, an economist who specialized in international work and who developed an economic model for international funding, died Dec. 5 at his home in Washington. He had pancreatic cancer, his brother, James Posner, said. Dr. Posner was an economics consultant in Washington for almost 50 years. In the 1970s, he was a co-founder of a firm called Practical Concepts. While leading Practical Concepts, his brother said, Dr. Posner developed a model called the "logical framework" that became a widely used method of planning and...

John Auten, 89, a Treasury Department economist who retired in 2001 as director of the office of macroeconomic analysis, died Feb. 5 at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington County. He was an Alexandria resident. He had prostate cancer, said his son-in-law, Robert Noll. Dr. Auten taught at Ohio State and Rice universities before joining the Treasury Department in 1963. He later was director of the office of financial analysis and acting assistant secretary for economic policy.

Trevor DaCosta, 78, an economist and diplomat who retired from the World Bank in 1997, died June 2 of complications after a stroke at Washington Hospital Center. He had been a resident of Washington for 46 years. Mr. DaCosta was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and graduated from McGill University in Montreal. He received a diploma from the National College of Food Technology in London and a postgraduate diploma in economics from Oxford University. He worked in his father's food processing business in Kingston until joining the British civil service in...

WASHINGTON — The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits rose 32,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 360,000, the most since late March. The jump came a week after applications had reached a five-year low. The less volatile four-week average rose just 1,250 to 339,250, the Labor Department said Thursday. That's a level consistent with modest job gains. "The underlying story in jobless claims continues to be one of gradual improvement," said Julia Coronado, an economist at BNP Paribas.

Brigitta P.H. Mitchell, 81, a World Bank economist for more than 30 years, died May 4 at the Ingleside at King Farm retirement residence in Rockville, where she had lived for the past two years. She had Parkinson's disease. A granddaughter, Juliet Hiznay, confirmed the death. Mrs. Mitchell began her World Bank career shortly after settling in Washington in 1968. Her specialties included infrastructure projects in West Africa and from 1979 to 1981 she lived in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

BERLIN — The German economy managed to avoid sinking into recession during an unusually cold first quarter, but only just, official figures showed Wednesday. Europe's biggest economy grew by 0.1 percent in the January-March quarter compared with the previous three-month period, Germany's Federal Statistical Office said. That followed a 0.7 percent decline in last year's fourth quarter, a figure that was revised downward from the initial reading of 0.6 percent. The increase was lower than...

Incumbent James Lander won the Democratic endorsement for the Arlington School Board in a very close primary campaign. Lander beat out economist and children's book author Barbara Kanninen, by 47 votes in a two-day caucus that ended Saturday. "This campaign has been a tremendous opportunity to re-connect with Arlington voters," Lander said in a media statement. He said he appreciated Kanninen's "spirited and well-run campaign. " School board races are non-partisan in...

LONDON — A larger-than-expected increase in industrial production across the 17 European Union countries that use the euro has raised hopes that the recession in the currency bloc has eased or even ended. Official figures released Tuesday from Eurostat, the EU's statistics office, showed eurozone industrial output rose a monthly 1 percent in March, double the rate expected in the markets and the biggest gain since July 2011. As a result, industrial...

HONG KONG — Hong Kong's economy grew slightly in the first quarter as the trade-dependent Asian financial center was held back by an unsteady global demand. While conditions have improved since last year, the outlook was still clouded by problems in debt-mired Europe and an uncertain recovery in the United States, government economists said Friday. Economic output in the southern Chinese city grew a meager 0.2 percent in the first three months of the year...

William R. Barlow, 90, an economist and analyst at the Interior Department for 22 years, died Aug. 13 at the Washington Home hospice. He died of end-stage renal disease, said his daughter, Ellen Barlow. Mr. Barlow settled in the Washington area after his service in the Army in World War II. He was enrolled in a postgraduate Russian studies program at the Johns Hopkins School of International Studies. He began his career at the Interior Department in 1951. He also served as an interpreter and escort for delegations from the Soviet...

Edward Karpoff, 94, a retired economist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, died April 3 at the Hebrew Home of Greater Washington in Rockville. He died of injuries from a fall, said his son Julian Karpoff. Mr. Karpoff worked at the Agriculture Department from 1940 to 1979. He wrote the monthly "Poultry and Egg Situation" report in the 1950s and early 1960s and served in Geneva during the tariff reduction negotiations in 1967. He was agricultural attache in Tehran in 1977 and served the World Bank as a consultant on the Korean...