The US economy grew at 1.9 per cent in the second quarter of 2008, the government said Thursday, shaking off an ongoing credit and housing crisis that had some predicting a recession in the first half of the year, DPA reported. The gross domestic product (GDP) figure was up from a revised 0.9 per cent in the first quarter, but less than the 2.3 per cent economists had predicted for the world's largest economy, according to Bloomberg financial news. In a surprising announcement, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) also revised fourth-quarter GDP figures down to a 0.2-per-cent contraction from an earlier estimated growth rate of 0.6 per cent. That revision could spark new talk of a recession over the 2007- 2008 period. First-quarter 2008 growth was revised down slightly to 0.9 per cent from 1 per cent. A recession is typically defined as two straight contracting quarters.
