On Jan 13, 2009, at 2:55 PM, Charles Brown wrote:
If the US has been in a recession since January 2008, does that mean
that GDP dropped in the last quarter or last two quarters of 2007 ?
And has dropped in all quarters since ? And this fact was missed by
the Bureau of Labor Statistics until this past fall ?
There is no requirement that GDP fall in any number of quarters for a
recession to be declared. The "two consecutive quarters of decline"
metric is popular, but it has no official status. The official def:
<http://www.nber.org/cycles/dec2008.html>
"A recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread
across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible
in production, employment, real income, and other indicators. A
recession begins when the economy reaches a peak of activity and ends
when the economy reaches its trough. Between trough and peak, the
economy is in an expansion."
The BLS doesn't produce the GDP stats; it produces labor and price
statistics, as its name suggests. GDP is calculated by the Bureau of
Economic Analysis. The BLS started reporting declines in employment in
January 2008. It's likely they've been underreporting - for technical,
not sinister reasons - the decline in employment since last spring.
Doug
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