Lower spending by federal, state, and local governments subtracted 0.6% from the first quarter’s growth rate. Continuing federal fiscal drag seems likely for the rest of the year. An even bigger disappointment in the 2012:Q1 GDP report might be nonresidential fixed investment. This had been making a solid contribution over the previous year, but subtracted 0.2% from Q1 growth. If business investment continues to make a negative contribution for the rest of the year, it could pose a stiff headwind.

 

But I think it’s worth emphasizing what’s been happening in two sectors that play a critical role in most business cycles. Housing contributed 0.4 percentage points to the 2.2% Q1 growth, and autos an additional 0.7 percentage points. These two categories usually make a big contribution both to the drop in GDP during a recession as well as to the rebound usually seen in the early recovery phase. For example, in the 2007:Q4-2009:Q2 recession, real GDP fell on average at a 2.7% annual rate, with autos and housing accounting for about half of this decline all by themselves.

 

Contributions to the growth rate of real GDP, 1947:Q2 to 2012:Q1. Top panel: growth rate of real GDP (annual rate). Middle panel: contribution to first panel of motor vehicles and parts. Bottom panel: contribution of residential fixed investment. Shaded areas represent dates of economic recessions as determined by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Data source: BEA Table 1.5.2.

One of the unusual features of the recent data is that these two key sectors contributed very little to the first two years of the recovery, with autos only adding 0.1 percentage point to the average annual GDP growth over 2009:Q3-2011:Q3 and housing actually exerting a very slight drag. However, the last 6 months have been closer to the typical pattern, with autos contributing 0.8% and housing 0.3%.

Moreover, further growth in these sectors from here does not require any pent-up demand. If sales simply get back to historical replacement rates and meeting population growth, it would be a huge improvement over where we are right now.

 

Contributions to the level of GDP, 1947:Q1 to 2012:Q1. Top panel: nominal spending on motor vehicles and parts as a percentage of nominal GDP. Bottom panel: residential fixed investment as a percentage of nominal GDP. Blue lines represent historical averages. Data source: BEA Table 1.5.5.

The slow pace of GDP growth continues to disappoint, particularly for the 12.7 million Americans actively looking for jobs and still unable to find them. On the other hand, the U.S. is unquestionably better off than would be the case had the September prediction of the Economic Cycle Research Institute that the U.S. was about to enter another recession proved to be accurate. The latest GDP report brings our Econbrowser Recession Indicator Index down to 4.0%. For purposes of calculating this number, we allow one quarter for data revision and trend recognition, so the latest value, although it uses today’s released GDP numbers, is actually an assessment of where the economy was as of the end of the last quarter of 2011. The index would have to rise above 67% before our algorithm would declare that the U.S. had entered a new recession.

 

GDP-based recession indicator index. The plotted value for each date is based solely on information as it would have been publicly available and reported as of one quarter after the indicated date, with 2011:Q4 the last date shown on the graph. Shaded regions represent dates of NBER recessions, which were not used in any way in constructing the index, and which were sometimes not reported until two years after the date.

Not a recession, though of course we are all hoping for something much better than what we have so far. For other takes, see Phil Izzo, Karl Smith, and the always indispensable Calculated Risk.

This post originally appeared at Econbrowser and is posted with permission.