Harvard economist Ken Rogoff doesn’t expect the economy will fall back in recession, though it still faces substantial headwinds.

"I'm a lot more optimistic than I was nine months ago,” Rogoff, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, told CNBC.

“I think the risks of a double dip in the near term are low."

That doesn’t mean a robust recovery is in the cards, though.

One issue is residential real estate, he says.

"Housing, I don't think we've seen bottom yet," Rogoff said.

“I think we are likely to have housing go down a bit further after all the supports are taken away and all the foreclosures and everything.”

Unemployment, now 10 percent, remains a problem too, he says. "It’s still very tough,” Rogoff explains.

“We might have job growth by the spring. But I don’t think the economy is going to be sustaining strong growth to bring back the probably 11 million jobs needed to get back to where we were, or even the 9 million jobs to get to 6 percent unemployment.”

Former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Alan Blinder has a cautiously optimistic outlook similar to Rogoff's view.

“The 3-4 percent growth rate I anticipate for the rest of this year and 2010 is a lot worse than (normal after a recession) to be sure. But compared to what we've been through, it will feel a whole lot better,” Blinder wrote in the Wall Street Journal.