Impacts of US financial crises on growth in North America

Abstract

Growth in the US appears to be slowing rapidly after an expansion of 4.8 per cent at an annual rate in the third quarter of 2007. As we can see from figure 5, growth dropped to almost zero per cent at an annual rate in the fourth quarter and we expect the rate to be negative in the first quarter of this year. The growth rate will be negative for the first time since the downturn in 2001, which, after data revision, no longer constitutes a technical recession.