By JIM GENARO

Though a national recession is likely in the coming year, Asheville is set to weather it well, with a robust job market and strong home-value appreciation, according to economic analysts Tom Tveidt and James F. Smith.

The pair presented their outlooks on the national and local economies last Wednesday evening during the eight annual Asheville Metro Economy Outlook at the Diana Wortham Theater.

About 300 people attended the event, which was sponsored by the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce.

Smith, who is a relative newcomer to the Asheville area, is a noted national economist and the new chief economist for Parsec Financial, an Asheville-based investment firm.

Tveidt is the director of the Asheville Metro Business Research Center, a program of the Chamber of Commerce.

Smith began the presentation, focusing on the international economic outlook. He noted that overall, the worldís economies are thriving. Last year marks the ìfifth year in a row of well-above-average global expansion,î he said. This is the longest such period since the early 1900s, Smith added.

ìSo you really have to ask yourself why Congress is trying to destroy global trade,î he told the audience.

Smith then added that it is not just the Democratic majority that is doing this, joking that ìthe serious bad news is we have bipartisan stupidity.î

Nonetheless, he noted, the worldís economies are thriving, largely because of ìmuch better monetary policies over the past 30 yearsî than in previous decades.

And the real winner in that economy is the U.S., he said. Smith attributed the strength of the national economy to high productivity rates.

China, he said, has very low productivity levels. ìThatís why it takes a million of them to produce what a few hundred can produce here,î he quipped.

Smith noted that in the past 25 years, the U.S. economy has expanded during 95 out of a hundred quarters.

In the past century, however, the economy has slowed during 21 quarters, of which 17 were preceded by what he called an ìinverted yield curve.î This happens when long-term investments have a lower yield than short-term investments.

Almost invariably, within nine to 19 months after such an inversion, the economy goes into a recession, Smith said.

Last July, the yield curve inverted, which means that between last May and March 2008 a recession can be expected, he told the audience.

However, Smith said the recession is unlikely to be a major one, but rather a fairly short one similar to 2001, which was largely exacerbated by the attacks of 9/11.

Several strong factors in the U.S. economy will contribute to a quick recovery, he said. One of these is record numbers of high school and college graduates.

ìThe secret to success is getting all the education you can,î he told the audience.

Whether the U.S. does undergo a recession ó and how fast it recovers if it does ó will determine the outcome of the 2008 election, he said. Smith predicted that if the economy were to come back with a strong growth rate of about 4.5 percent or higher, the Republicans would win no matter what candidate was running. If it were lower, the Democrats would win.

ìHistory shows since World War II ... every election from Truman versus Dewey in ë46 to Bush versus Kerry in 2004 has been decided on the rate of growth for the 12 months before the election,î Smith said.

Tveidt addressed the Asheville metropolitan area economy, which, he said, is doing well.

ìEvery major industrial sector has added employeesî in the past year, Tveidt noted. The one exception is information technology, which has remained relatively flat. However, he said, this is not a major sector of Ashevilleís economy anyway.

Manufacturing, he noted, added about 50 jobs last year, a turning point for the sector, which had lost about 1,000 jobs per year every year of the previous decade.

Leisure and hospitality have sustained moderate growth, and health services, one of the cityís primary industries, has seen slower but still moderate growth.

Tvedit added that the limiting factor in the expansion of health services is not demand, but a lack of trained people to take the positions needed.

However, the local economy has seen one significant change. For the first time in 2007, the top two industries in terms of growth are the professional and business-services sector, and financial activities.

The latter of these, he said, is an ìexport industry,î meaning that it serves customers from outside the Asheville area. ìWhich means itís the kind of industry we like,î he added.

Professional and business services include high-paying technology jobs and temporary agencies. Growth in these areas means the economy is becoming stronger and more diversified, Tveidt said. ìThis is very positive,î he told the audience.

He noted that while Asheville does have lower wages than the state or the nation, it is starting to close the gap.

One strong factor driving the economy is that the housing market, while it is declining, is not declining at the rate that the nationís is.

Furthermore, while the number of houses sold has declined, the values of homes have stayed steady. Asheville ranks in the top 12 metropolitan areas in the country for home appreciation.

He also noted that housing rates are largely skewed by national trends. Many people who want to move to Asheville and buy homes are waiting to sell their homes in other markets that are hard hit by the current downward trend in housing prices.

ìRelative to the nation and relative to the state, our real-estate market is quite healthy,î he said. For instance, in the 10 largest metropolitan areas in Florida, housing values have decreased, he said.

Tveidt then turned to the issue of immigration, saying that the common perception that Asheville is experiencing a population explosion is not backed by the statistics. Though its population growth is higher than the stateís, it is lower than that of the U.S. and ìwithin the range of normal,î he said.

However, what is unusual about Asheville is that 97.6 percent of that growth is coming from people moving from elsewhere, not from natural growth.

Furthermore, people ages 50-59 are moving here in large numbers, he said.

If the U.S. does enter a recession, Tveidt said he thinks Asheville will fare well. During the 2001 recession, Asheville barely dipped into negative or zero employment-growth rates, he noted.