Now the Commerce Department says the economy shrank by 0.5% in the 3rd quarter of 2000, fully 6 months before the NBER says the recession began (the previous data having said that the GDP increased throughout the year). But because NBER uses monthly data, it is not expected to revise its business cycle tracking dates. Of course there are political implications: the Bush administration will now argue that it inhereted the economic problems that dogged his first couple of years before his policies fixed everything up (with the biggest spending spree since the New Deal).
