Real gross domestic product – the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the U.S. – increased at an annual rate of 3.6 percent from the second quarter to the third, according to the second estimate from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the second quarter, real GDP increased 2.5 percent.
The GDP estimate released today is based on more complete source data than were available for the advance estimate issued last month. In that estimate, the increase in real GDP was 2.8 percent. With this second estimate for the third quarter, the increase in private inventory investment was larger than previously estimated.
The increase in real GDP in the third quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from private inventory investment, personal consumption expenditures, exports, nonresidential fixed investment, residential fixed investment, and state and local government spending that were partly offset by a negative contribution from federal government spending. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased.
The acceleration in real GDP growth in the third quarter primarily reflected an acceleration in private inventory investment, a deceleration in imports, and an acceleration in state and local government spending that were partly offset by decelerations in exports, in PCE, and in nonresidential fixed investment.