Negative Growth in 1st-quarter GDP
The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) estimated that real gross domestic product (GDP) declined at an annual rate of 1.0% during the 1st-quarter 2014. BEA had estimated that real GDP had advanced by 0.1% in its first estimate of 1st-quarter GDP.
Recovery's Growth Gap Remains Large
Bonus Depreciation
Making bonus depreciation permanent will help put the U.S. economy on a higher trajectory and begin to close the $1.4 trillion “Growth Gap” between our current recovery and the average of previous recoveries over the last five decades.
Weekly Economic Update: May 19-23, 2014
Existing home sales increased 1.3% to a 4.65 million annual rate in April. New home sales increased 6.4% for April to a 433,000 annual rate. Initial jobless claims rose 28,000 to 326,000 for the week ended 5/17.
Weekly Economic Update: May 12-16, 2014
The U.S. Treasury posted a $106.9 billion budget surplus for April. Retail sales are up 0.1% in April. Business inventories are up 0.4% for March. The producer price index for total final demand in April is up 0.6%. The consumer price index increased 0.3% in April, while core CPI was up 0.2%. Indust...
Weekly Economic Update: May 5-9, 2014
The ISM services index increased 2.1 points to 55.2 in April. The U.S. trade deficit narrowed $1.5 billion (3.6%) in March to $40.4 billion. Nonfarm productivity fell an annualized 1.7% in the 1st quarter of 2014. Consumer credit increased $17.53 billion (0.6%) in March to $3.141 trillion. Initial j...
Weekly Economic Update: April 28 - May 2, 2014
Pending home sales increased 3.4% in March to 97.4. The Case-Shiller home price index increased 0.8% in February. GDP grew a lower-than-expected 0.1% in the advance estimate for Q1 of 2014. The FOMC announced that the policy rates remain unchanged with the fed funds target rate at a range of zero to...
April Employment Report:
Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced that it estimates that the economy added 288,000 nonfarm payroll jobs (273,000 in the private sector) and that the unemployment rate declined by 0.4 percentage point to 6.3% during April. The large decline in the unemployment rate was driven in ...
The Need for Economic Analysis in Federal Regulation
In general, federal agencies fail to analyze credibly the costs and effectiveness of their regulations. Only a small fraction of regulations that are issued in a given year are analyzed for their costs and benefits. And when agencies do perform analyses, stakeholders often consider them perfunctor...
Measuring Gross Output and Gross Domestic Product
Beginning April 25th, BEA debuted quarterly estimates of gross domestic product (GDP) generated by each of the 22 industries identified in the economy, which were previously reported on an annual basis only. GDP by industry is a measure of value added of final products for each industry group.
