Chairman Ben S. Bernanke will probably start reducing the Federal Reserve’s $85 billion in monthly bond buying no earlier than the fourth quarter of 2013, economists said in a Bloomberg survey.

The Fed chief will probably halt the unprecedented easing in the first half of next year after expanding central bank assets to a record of about $4 trillion, according to median estimates by 46 economists surveyed March 13-18 before a two-day meeting of policy makers ending Tuesday. Unemployment will have fallen to 7.3 percent from its current 7.7 percent when the Fed starts to pull back on its buying, the economists said.

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