Over the past twenty years, output growth in the U.S. has become noticeably less volatile. During that time, the economy has experienced two recessions, compared with four in each of the two preceding twenty year periods. Further, the loss in output during the last two recessions has been...

Some time ago, the Commerce Department changed the way it calculates real gross domestic product. In response to that change, this paper presents an update of a simple model that is used to predict the growth rate of current quarter real output based on available monthly data. After searching...