Third-Quarter Growth Was 8.2%

The government's opinion of how fast the U.S. economy grew in the third quarter continues to improve.

According to the Commerce Department, annualized gross domestic product was $9.82 trillion in the July-to-September period, up 8.2% in inflation-adjusted dollars from the second quarter. The revision from an initial estimate of 7.2% growth mainly reflects a higher estimate of business inventories during the quarter.

The new estimate widens the spread by which third-quarter 2003 growth beat every quarter since the early 1980s and could imply a better print for the current quarter, in which economists believe GDP will rise by about 4%. It also occurred without an increase in a key inflation gauge, the personal consumption expenditures price index, which fell to a 2.3% increase from an initially reported 2.4% gain.

GDP growth was 3.3% in the second quarter.

In the first estimate of third-quarter output, economists had estimated that inventory activity subtracted 67 basis points from the growth rate. That was revised to an addition of 16 basis points in the revision.

Economists had been predicting a revision to growth of roughly 7.6%.