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 2.4 percent from the third quarter to the fourth quarter in 2013, according to the second estimate from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the third quarter, real GDP increased 4.1 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 3.2 percent. With this second estimate for the fourth quarter, the increase in personal consumption expenditures (PCE) was smaller than previously estimated.
The increase in real GDP in the fourth quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from PCE, exports, nonresidential fixed investment and private inventory investment that were partly offset by negative contributions from federal government spending, residential fixed investment and state and local government spending. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased.
The deceleration in real GDP growth in the fourth quarter reflected a deceleration in private inventory investment, a larger decrease in federal government spending, and downturns in residential fixed investment and in state and local government spending that were partly offset by accelerations in exports, in PCE and in nonresidential fixed investment and a deceleration in imports.
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