[세계 경제]미국 경제는 결국에는 기름때문에 성장했다

U.S. Economy

The U.S. Economy Probably Grew After All, Thanks to Oil

By Peter Coy on February 08, 2013

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-08/the-u-dot-s-dot-economy-probably-grew-after-all-thanks-to-oil#r=hpt-ls

There were big headlines—here and elsewhere—after the government reported on Jan. 30 that the U.S. economy shrank in the fourth quarter.

Never mind. A little more than a week later, surprisingly good trade figures today are leading economists to predict that the government will revise its gross domestic product estimate for the last three months of 2012 into positive territory.

The Department of Commerce said the trade deficit shrank 21 percent to about $39 billion, the smallest trade gap since January 2010. Oil was the biggest factor. The U.S. imported the fewest barrels of crude in almost 16 years, while fuel exports actually rose.

Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis releases its first estimate on quarterly GDP growth just a month after the quarter ends, so it’s forced to make assumptions and extrapolations to fill in for missing data. The accuracy of its estimate improves as more complete information arrives.

Economists quickly incorporated the new figures into their GDP estimates. Macroeconomic Advisers (briefly) estimated that the economy grew at a 0.7 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter.

“The U.S. trade balance improved dramatically at the end of last year,” UniCredit (UCG) economist Harm Bandholz wrote to clients.

Wait, though. That wasn’t the end of things. Shortly after putting out better-than-expected trade data, the government released worse-than-expected data on wholesale inventories. Macroeconomic Advisers’ Ben Herzon said incorporating inventories would probably reduce its growth estimate to roughly 0.4 percent to 0.5 percent. Barclays (BCS) estimated 0.3 percent. JPMorgan Chase (JPM) economist Daniel Silver wrote to clients: “Our tracking estimate of 4Q GDP growth is now at 0.2%.”

The net of the flurry of revisions is that the economy probably didn’t really shrink in the fourth quarter after all. On the other hand, it didn’t grow much, either.

요약

미국 정부는 1월 30일에 경기가 움츠러들었다고 보고했다. 그리고 약 1주일 후에는 의외로 좋은 무역 지수가 2012년 지난 3달간 GDP 추정치를 긍정적으로 평가할 것라고 전망했다. 상무부는 무역 적자가 21% 줄었다고 말했는데 이는 기룸이 가장 큰 요인이었다. 미국은 거의 16년 간 가장 적은 기름을 수입했고 수출량은 실제로 증가했다고 한다. 경제 분석 상공부는 분기가 끝나자 GDP 성장을 처음에로 측정했고, 누락된 데이터를 채우기 위해 추정하도록 강요되었다. 경제학자들은 GDP 추정지에 새로운 수치를 통합했고, 거시 경제 보좌관은 경제가 4분기에 0.7% 성장했다고 추정했다. 결국 미국 경제는 아마도 4분기에 움츠러들지 않았다. 그렇다고 많이 성장한 것도 아니다.