The U.S. economy may return to its pre-crisis peak next quarter after a recovery that a former Federal Reserve official described as “surprisingly strong, historically weak.”

The advance has “substantially exceeded expectations but remains well behind the norm,” said Peter Hooper, chief economist for Deutsche Bank Securities in New York and a former official with the Federal Reserve. He forecasts that the United States will grow at a 4 percent annual rate in the second quarter and 3.7 percent in the third, lifting gross domestic product (GDP) above the $13.4 trillion peak set in the second period of 2008.

The economy has expanded at an average annual rate of 3.7 percent per quarter since the middle of last year, two-and-a-half times more than the median forecast of 58 economists surveyed in June 2009 by Bloomberg News. That still left first-quarter GDP shy of its previous pinnacle, according to U.S. Commerce Department data — the only time since 1955 the United States hasn’t gained back all the ground lost in a recession during the first nine months of a rebound.

The recovery has created what former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan calls “a bivariate type of economy” in which some have thrived and others have not.

First-quarter earnings for the 460 companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index that reported results through May 14 climbed 55 percent from a year ago, with 353 beating estimates of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. The surge in corporate earnings has helped push up the S&P 500 by 68 percent since March 2009, boosting the net worth of Americans who own shares.

Small companies haven’t fared as well. More than half reported falling profits in a survey last month by the Washington-based National Federation of Independent Business.