Business leaders pessimistic about short-term growth.

• Position: GLOBAL ECONOMY

Most chief executives and chief financial officers have an increasingly negative assessment of the next 12 months of global economic health, citing volatility in Europe, an unsettled political landscape in the U.S. and sluggish Chinese growth, a new study reports. But the study also notes that more than half of U.S. companies questioned--while downbeat about overall global trends--still express optimism about their own prospects in the year ahead.

The Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA) Global Economic Forecast, released in July by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (LIMA), polled 600 management accountants from more than 60 countries on global and domestic economic conditions, and measured their outlook for their organizations.

The CGMA Global Economic Index, a comprehensive gauge of executive sentiment that falls within the forecast, dropped markedly--down seven points to a grade of 58 from the reading of 65 in the first quarter of 2012. The index is a composite of 10 equally weighted survey measures on a scale from 0 to 100, with 50 considered neutral and numbers above that signifying a positive sentiment.

Most telling in the index was the decline of faith in the global economic recovery. Optimism stood among respondents at a scant 11 percent. According to the study, the decline is attributable to a number of key factors, including the worsening financial crisis in Europe and its effects on other regions, political and fiscal and political uncertainty in the U.S. and slower economic growth in China.

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Among the U.S. participants, 36 percent of management accountants said they were optimistic about the domestic economy...