03.26.2020
Real gross domestic product increased at an annual rate of 2.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2019 according to the \""third\"" estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the third quarter real GDP also increased 2.1 percent. The increase in real GDP in the fourth quarter reflected positive contributions from PCE exports residential fixed investment federal government spending and state and local government spending that were partly offset by negative contributions from private inventory investment and nonresidential fixed investment. Imports which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP decreased.
Real GDP growth in the fourth quarter was the same as that in the third. In the fourth quarter a downturn in imports and an acceleration in government spending were offset by a larger decrease in private inventory investment and a slowdown in PCE. In the third estimate the fourth-quarter growth rate in real GDP was unrevised from the second estimate. PCE residential investment and state and local government spending were revised up. These upward revisions were offset by downward revisions to federal government spending and nonresidential fixed investment as well as an upward revision to imports.
