The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Israel's construction un-bust
In Israel, there was no housing boom - there hasn't been one since the mid-1990s. So there was no bubble and no bust.
By PINCHAS LANDAUPinchas Landau blog photo(photo credit: Courtesy)Israel's construction un-bust
The headlines have been screaming that the Israeli economy is in recession -- as if anyone needed to be told that. The reason why this is a news item is because the data for GDP growth in the first quarter of 2009 (published on 17/5) showed, to no-one's surprise, that this key measure of economic activity shrank at an annualised pace of 3.6% in January-March 2009. The fact that this was the second successive quarter of negative economic growth confirms that Israel (too) is in a recession - because two straight down quarters is the standard definition of a recession.
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