Statistics Canada released their estimates for November GDP gowth on Monday, and it was relatively good news: an increase of 4.4% at annual rates. But we shouldn't get to excited. According to the small backcasting (no, I did not make that word up) model I've been using for the past few years, the 2010Q4 number should be around 1.9%.
The model takes the monthly GDP data from the first two months of the quarter and combines them with estimates for the last month using LFS data on employment and hours worked; the 2010Q3 exercise is here. One factor behind this disappointing estimate is the drop in hours worked in December, which brought the estimate for monthly GDP growth in that month down to 1.3%. OTOH, hours worked is a very volatile series, so it should be noted again that this preliminary estimate for quarterly GDP growth is measured with a significant amount of error: the standard deviation is 0.5, and the interquartile range is [1.7,2.4]. The Bank of Canada's most recent estimate was 2.3%.
Care to have a go at this.
"Consider that in most provinces, direct government spending and investment has accounted for the majority of real GDP growth during the past five years. In Ontario and Nova Scotia, all of the economy's growth can be traced back to the government sector."
Posted by: Robert McClelland | February 02, 2011 at 09:32 AM
I'm at 2.1 (+/- 0.3)
Posted by: brendon | February 02, 2011 at 07:31 PM