Real GDP grew at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.1 percent during the second quarter of 2018, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis’s “advance” estimate, up from 2.2 percent in the first quarter. The growth in real GDP reflected positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures, exports, nonresidential fixed investment, federal government spending, and state and local government spending that were partly offset by negative contributions from private inventory investment and residential fixed investment.
Consumption accounted for 2.7 percent of the gain, up from 0.4 percent during the first quarter. Fixed investments added a total of 0.9 percent to GDP. After inventories contributed 0.3 percent to GDP last quarter, they subtracted 1.0 percent in the second quarter.
Government spending increased marginally the quarter, adding 0.4 percent to growth. Federal and state and local government contributed approximately 0.2 percent each to the GDP increase.
Read the BEA release.
