Real gross domestic product increased at an annual rate of 1.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015, according to the "third" estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
In the third quarter, real GDP increased 2 percent.
The increase in real GDP in the fourth quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures, residential fixed investment, and federal government spending that were partly offset by negative contributions from exports, nonresidential fixed investment, exports, private inventory investment, and state and local government spending. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, decreased.
The deceleration in real GDP in the fourth quarter primarily reflected downturns in nonresidential fixed investment and in state and local government spending, a deceleration in PCE, and a downturn in exports that were partly offset by a smaller decrease in private inventory investment, a downturn in imports, and an acceleration in federal government spending.
Real gross domestic income (GDI), which measures the value of the production of goods and services in the United States as the costs incurred and the incomes earned in production, increased 0.9 percent in the fourth quarter, compared with an increase of 2 percent in the third. The average of real GDP and real GDI, a supplemental measure of U.S. economic activity that equally weights GDP and GDI, increased 1.1 percent in the fourth quarter, compared with an increase of 2 percent in the third.
