A recession that started in 2000- Until now, statisticians at Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis believed the economy did not start shrinking until early 2001. But extensive revisions dating back to 1929, incorporating both improved statistics and changes to definitions, revealed a contraction in gross domestic product, or GDP, in the July-to-September quarter of 2000.
Instead of inching ahead at the first reported 0.6 percent annual rate in that quarter, GDP shrank 0.5 percent, Commerce said. The weaker estimate is mostly due to a larger drop in private inventories than previously reported.
President Bush and his economic team have long insisted he inherited a recession from the former Clinton administration, and the White House may seize on these new numbers to back that claim.
The economy bounced back smartly in the fourth quarter but the revisions show the economy weakened just before hitting the top of the business cycle late in 2000.
"The cyclical peak is still the fourth quarter of 2000, but this does indicate that there was perhaps more slowing before the downturn than the estimates had previously shown," said Brent Moulton, who is in charge of compiling the GDP report for the Bureau of Economic Analysis. |
