The economy grew at an inflation-adjusted rate of 3.7 percent for all of 1987, the fifth year of expansion.

The economy grew at an inflation-adjusted annual rate of 0.7 percent, the Commerce Department said, leaving it in its weakest condition in a decade.

According to a preliminary estimate from the Commerce Department, the economy expanded at an inflation-adjusted annual rate of 1.8 percent in the third quarter.

In the third quarter, the economy contracted at an annual inflation-adjusted rate of 1.1 percent, its worst showing since 1991, during the nation's last recession.

Low rates, in particular low inflation-adjusted rates, tend to favor investments from college educations and computers to highways and houses.

Nationally, she said, corporate support for education is stagnant, having grown at an average inflation-adjusted rate of 7.7 percent a year from 1976 to 1987.

Since 1871, according to the researchers, earnings and dividends have grown at an inflation-adjusted annual rate of around 1.5 percent.

For 1988, he forecasted that such spending would rise at an inflation-adjusted rate of 1.5 percent.

The report showed that the economy expanded at an inflation-adjusted rate of 3.3 percent, up from an earlier estimate of 3.1 percent.

Official budget numbers do show total federal revenue growing at an inflation-adjusted rate of 3.1 percent over the period, reasonably close to Abraham's 3.8.