San Francisco Fed Joins Fray Over Lousy First-Quarter U.S. GDP Numbers

The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco said today a statistical quirk is probably partly responsible for persistently weak economic growth during the first three months of every year.

In the latest volley of a debate embroiling economists from Wall Street to Washington, researchers at the central bank’s San Francisco office said the economy in the first quarter was “substantially stronger” than the government reported last month. After adjusting the data, they found gross domestic product actually expanded at a 1.8 percent annualized rate versus the 0.2 percent gain initially estimated by the government last month.