Economics
Economists Are Having a Huge Debate About the Real Reason First-Quarter Growth Was So Slow
"Residual seasonality" skews quarterly GDP figures
Snow was blamed for this year's weak first-quarter figures.
Photographer: Peter Foley/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
The advance estimate of U.S. growth for the first three months of the year showed the economy expanded by just 0.2 percent on an annualized basis, far shy of the 1 percent median forecast.
Temporary factors such as larger-than-average snowfall and the West Coast port strike weighed on activity, but this is not the first time in recent memory that first-quarter growth disappointed by a substantial margin.