“Last year business owners more accurately forecasted GDP than Wall Street consensus, the feds, the White House, or the Congressional Budget Office,” says John Paglia, who—in conjunction with Pepperdine University’s Private Capital Markets Project—just released the 2012 Economic Forecast: Insights from Small and Mid-Sized Business Owners.

In this year’s survey, based on responses from over 3,000 business owners, a clear majority (52%) said they were “somewhat more confident” today in the country’s business growth prospects compared to one year ago. Nearly a quarter (22%) are confident that the U.S. will see better financial times in the year ahead, while just about the same number (27%) are on the fence. At the same time, almost half of responding business owners are not planning on hiring any new employees next year (43%), but the same percentage reported that, in the past 12 months, they had raised pay for current employees, and just about the same number (42%) will raise workers’ salaries in the coming year. Nearly two-thirds said their own incomes had stayed flat in 2011, but 50% expect to earn more in 2012.

Kudos to Paglia and Slee. After tallying the votes in the 3rd annual Middle Market Thought Leader Award, sponsored by AM&AA and Grant Thornton, Paglia tied for first place with Robert Slee (Robertson Foley)—and so the two finalists each received the honor. “Rob Slee was recognized for his seminal book, Private Capital Markets: Valuation, Capitalization, and Transfer of Private Business Interests (2d Ed.),” says the recent Grant Thornton release. “Dr. John Paglia was honored for his ground breaking research at Pepperdine University to understand the true cost of private capital across market types and the investment expectations of privately held business owners.”

For a 360-degree view of the expanded Pepperdine project and its evolving private capital database, don’t miss BVR’s webinar on Thursday March 15, “Point/Counterpoint: Debating the Private Capital Markets Project,” with Paglia and Kevin Yeanoplos (Breuggeman and Johnson Yeanoplos P.C.).