Economy
March 29, 2015
Gross Domestic Product for Q4 2014, Third Estimate
Written by Peter Wright
The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released the third estimate of Q4 2014 Annual Revision of the National Income and Product Accounts on Friday.
The annualized growth rate in the third estimate of 4th quarter GDP was unchanged from the second estimate which was 2.2 percent but down from the first estimate which was 2.64 percent. Growth in the Q4 was down from almost 5.0 percent in Q3 and from 4.59 in Q2. GDP is measured and reported in chained 2009 dollars and in Q4 was estimated to be $16.295 trillion. The calculation is slightly misleading because it takes the Q over Q growth and multiplies by 4 to get an annualized rate. This makes the high quarters higher and the low quarters lower. Figure 1 clearly shows this effect. The blue line is the trailing 12 months growth and the white line is the headline quarterly result.
