NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Economists expect the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates to 4.5 percent, a full percentage point higher than current levels, before it stops its tightening effort, according to a survey published Friday.

The Wall Street Journal survey also found economists, by a narrow margin, believe the Fed will raise rates higher than it should. About 54 percent told the paper they see a greater risk of the Fed moving too aggressively in the next year, while 46 percent say the bigger concern is rates will be kept too low.

The Fed started hiking rates in June 2004, and it has raised rates by a quarter percentage point at 10 straight meetings to reach the current 3.5 percent level.

A few months ago, many economists and investors were expecting the Fed to take at least a pause in its current path of rate hikes, perhaps as soon as the Aug. 9 meeting, certainly by the Sept. 20 meeting.

That pause is still possible, according to the survey of 56 economists conducted by the Journal. It reported the economists expect the funds rate to be 4 percent by the end of 2005, which would mean only two more hikes at the Fed's final three meetings of the year. The economists also are looking for a 4.25 percent rate by mid-2006.

But some economists in the survey are expecting the Fed to keep hiking rates without pause for longer, and to a higher level. For example, economists at Goldman Sachs are forecasting the funds rate rising all the way to 5 percent by the middle of next year.

The Fed has seven meetings between now and June 2005 to accomplish six quarter-point rate hikes if it stays with its current "measured" pace of increases to reach that level.

Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan's term ends Jan. 31, and the economists surveyed are split about who they would like to see lead the central bank next.

Ben Bernanke, a former Fed governor and current chairman of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisors, led the survey with the support of 30 percent of the economists, while Martin Feldstein, president of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and Fed governor Donald Kohn each had 15 percent of the economists backing them.

Former White House economic adviser and Columbia University professor Glenn Hubbard had 11 percent support, the same as Clinton administration Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin.

Of those five potential successors, Democrat Rubin is generally seen as having virtually no chance of being tapped by the Bush administration. The other four have been named as possible successors -- as has Lawrence Lindsey, the architect of the tax cut plan President Bush backed in his 2000 election campaign, who left his post as Bush's top economic adviser in December 2002.

For a look at the latest speculation on a successor to Greenspan, click here.

For a look on details of the Fed's last rate hike, click here.

For "Eyes on the Fed," a special report on the Federal Reserve, click here.