U.S. Entered Recession December 2007

WASHINGTON(Reuters) – The economy slipped into recession in December 2007, theNational Bureau of Economic Research, the prestigious private researchinstitute that is regarded as the arbiter of U.S. recessions, declaredon Monday.

The NBER’s business cycle dating committee said its members met byconference call on Friday and concluded that the 73-month economicexpansion had ended. The previous period of economic expansion, whichended in 2001, lasted 10 years.

The current recession, which many economists expect to persistthrough the middle of next year, is already the third-longest since theGreat Depression, behind only the 16-month slumps of the mid-1970s andearly 1980s.

The NBER does not define a recession as two consecutive quarters ofdecline in real gross domestic product, as is the rule of thumb in manycountries. Instead, it looks for a decline in economic activity, spreadacross the economy and lasting more than a few months.

The current downturn was particularly tricky to define because grossdomestic product remained positive until the third quarter this year.The NBER said its committee looked at payrolls, which peaked inDecember 2007 and declined in every month since then, as well as realGDP and other data series to determine when the recession started.

"The committee determined that the decline in economic activity in2008 met the standard for a recession," the NBER said in a statement."All evidence other than the ambiguous movements of the quarterlyproduct-side measure of domestic production confirmed that conclusion."

The White House acknowledged the NBER’s declaration, but said thatdid not change its course on coping with the financial crisis that hasraged since August 2007.

"The most important things we can do for the economy right now areto return the financial and credit markets to normal, and to continueto make progress in housing, and that’s where we’ll continue to focus,"White House spokesman Tony Fratto said.

(Reporting by Emily Kaiser and Tabassum Zakaria; Editing by Leslie Adler)