Recent revisions to US GDP figures by the Commerce Department, suggest that the recession triggered in late 2007 was actually worse then previously believed. According to the latest information, the US economy actually contracted by 4.1 percent from the fourth quarter of 2007 to the second quarter of 2009. Originally, growth decline was pegged at 3.7 percent.
“We do tend to get bigger revisions at turning points in the economy,” Steven Landefeld, director of the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, said in a press conference this week. On the more positive side, “in the past, we’ve tended to undershoot the recovery” as well, he said.
Source: Bloomberg