Feroli (JPM) sul -2,9%
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25 Jun 2014
North America Economic Research
Juuust a bit outside
Real GDP contracted at a 2.9% annual rate in Q1, according to the third estimate produced by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. This is a much deeper hole than the 1.0% pace of contraction reported in the second estimate of GDP, with the downward revision owing mostly to new information about health care spending. In particular, the BEA had assumed the rollout of the Affordable Care Act meant a big lift to medical spending, an assumption that was not borne out in subsequently released hard data contained in the Quarterly Services Survey. At any rate, the near-3% rate of decline is a shocking number. It might be tempting to dismiss the figure, but the fact that real Gross Domestic Income (GDI) – which, in principle, should equate to GDP but is constructed from different source data – contracted at a similar-sized 2.6% rate makes it harder to write off today's number. The fact that there is a temptation to write off this number is interesting in its own right and likely reflects the healthy performance of the labor market in the first quarter. Moreover, since this is the third print of Q1, we are already pretty well-advanced into the second-quarter data cycle, and we continue to track quite close to 3.0% (positive) GDP growth in Q2.
In terms of revised thinking about Q2, at this stage there are offsetting considerations. One the one hand, the big downward revision to Q1 consumption – from 3.1% to 1.0% – means that the monthly numbers will likely show a weaker trajectory heading into Q2. On the other hand, there is a chance the BEA will assume some of the ACA-related increase in health care spending that didn't occur in Q1 may ramp up more gradually throughout the year. These uncertainties will be resolved tomorrow morning when we receive real monthly consumption spending up through May.
How should we understand the weakness in Q1? It may not be the most elegant answer, but we think it was mostly a confluence of several negative, but mostly one-off, factors. A swing in inventories subtracted 1.7%-points. The expiration of extended unemployment benefits probably stung consumption, as did the weather to some extent. Finally, nonresidential investment is lumpy and volatile, and happened to have a down quarter after a few up quarters in late 2013. Even so, the occurrence of such a big decline in a quarter when hours worked in the business sector was up at a 2.2% rate and the unemployment rate declined does not speak well about the supply side of the economy; indeed, business productivity likely declined at a 5.9% rate last quarter, the most since 1947.