CERF Blog

A remarkable thing happened today. For the first time in two years the estimate of United States economic growth was lower than our forecast. Despite weak fundamentals, U.S. GDP growth had been more rapid than our forecast due in part to temporary Government stimulus programs. The preliminary estimate of U.S. real GDP growth during January… Read more

Previously published in the California Economic Forecast, March 24, 2011 If you are looking for a summary statistic on the United States economy, I recommend you consider bank charge-offs. These are the loans that banks have written off their books, because the probability of collecting them is so low. It doesn’t mean that the borrowers… Read more

The BEA released their first estimate of United States 2010 quarter 4 GDP this morning. The economy grew at 3.2 percent in the fourth quarter which is an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 2.6 percent. The acceleration in growth was primarily driven by consumption growth, fixed investment, and declines in imports. Imports are a subtraction… Read more

The BEA’s second estimate of United States third quarter economic growth was released this morning. The revision from the first estimate of 2.0 percent growth was an increase of half a percent to 2.5 percent growth. The revisions were primarily the result of upward revisions to personal consumption expenditures, exports, and state/local government spending. The… Read more

We have some economic news out today.  453,000 filed initial unemployment claims, and the second quarter GDP estimate is 1.7 percent growth.  The news people are practically ecstatic over this, proclaiming it’s good news.  The markets seem to agree.  Each of the stock markets are up right now. True enough, the unemployment claims are down… Read more

The Bureau of Economic Analysis released their second estimate of United States 2010 second quarter Gross Domestic Product today. The revised estimate of 1.6 percent real GDP growth is much lower than the initial estimate of 2.4 percent, but some commentators spoke of this release in favorable terms, as it was higher than pre-release estimates… Read more

The Bureau of Economic Analysis released its first estimate of the United States 2010 second quarter Gross Domestic product growth rate today. Their estimated 2.4 percent growth rate was below most economists’ expectations, ours included. They estimate that consumption expenditures grew very mildly at 1.6 percent, investment expenditures grew massively at 29 percent, government expenditures… Read more

United States Gross Domestic Product expanded at a 3.2 percent pace in quarter one of 2010, according to the preliminary estimate released today. This was very close to our forecast of 3.1 percent. This expansion was the result of 3.6% growth in personal consumption expenditures and a $50 billion increase in real private inventory spending,… Read more

Today’s data releases highlight the challenges facing those who claim we are in a recovery. The December retail sales volume, down 0.3 percent from November, was perhaps the most shocking number to the optimists out there. This was almost a full percentage point below “consensus expectations,” which were for 0.5 percent growth. So much for… Read more

The BEA’s second estimate of total United States Economic activity, just out today, is 2.8 percent. This is down 70 basis points from the “advance” estimate published a month ago. The change in the estimate was driven mainly by upward revisions to imports and downward revisions to personal consumption expenditures and to nonresidential fixed investment… Read more