Data Insight: Which Growth Rate? It’s a Weighty Subject

Richard Crump, Stefano Eusepi, David Lucca and Emanuel Moench

No 20141229, Liberty Street Economics from Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Abstract: The growth rate in real gross domestic product (GDP) is a conventional indicator of the economy’s health. But the two ways of measuring annual GDP growth can give very different answers. In 2013, GDP grew 2.2 percent on a year-over-year basis, but at a faster 3.1 percent rate on a Q4-over-Q4 basis. So, which measure is more meaningful? We show in this post that the Q4/Q4 metric is better since it only considers quarterly growth rates during the current year, while the Year/Year measure depends on quarterly growth rates in both the current and previous year and puts considerable weight on growth around the turn of the year.

Keywords: Summary of Economic Projections; growth rates; Business cycles (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-12-29
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac
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