Real gross domestic product – the output of goods and services produced by labor and property in the U.S. – increased at an annual rate of 2.4 percent in the first quarter of 2013 (that is, from the fourth quarter to the first quarter), according to the second estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the fourth quarter, real GDP increased 0.4 percent.
The increase in real GDP in the first quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures, private inventory investment, residential fixed investment, nonresidential fixed investment and exports that were partly offset by negative contributions from federal government spending and state and local government spending. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased.
The acceleration in real GDP in the first quarter primarily reflected an upturn in private inventory investment, an acceleration in personal consumption expenditures, a smaller decrease in federal government spending and an upturn in exports that were partly offset by an upturn in imports and a deceleration in nonresidential fixed investment.
