Real gross domestic product – the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States – increased at an annual rate of 5.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009 from the third quarter to the fourth quarter, according to the third estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the third quarter, real GDP increased 2.2 percent.
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The GDP estimate released today is based on more complete source data than were available for the second estimate issued last month. In the second estimate, the increase in real GDP was 5.9 percent.
The increase in real GDP in the fourth quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from private inventory investment, exports, personal consumption expenditures (PCE), and nonresidential fixed investment. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased.
The acceleration in real GDP in the fourth quarter primarily reflected acceleration in private inventory investment, an upturn in nonresidential fixed investment, an acceleration in exports, and a deceleration in imports that were partly offset by decelerations in PCE and in federal government spending.
Motor vehicle output added 0.45 percentage point to the fourth-quarter change in real GDP after adding 1.45 percentage points to the third-quarter change. Final sales of computers added 0.01 percentage point to the fourth-quarter change in real GDP after subtracting 0.08 percentage point from the third-quarter change.