This morning the Bureau of Economic Analysis released its first estimate for 2011 GDP. It showed national output for the first time surpassing the pre-recession peak, which occurred in the last quarter of 2007. (See chart below) The expansion in 2011 was led by autos, computers, and other manufactured goods.
Given that the economy hit its trough in mid-2009, the long slow climb since then has been disappointing. The outcome turns out to have been worse than the conventional wisdom that sharp declines tend to be followed by sharp recoveries. On the other hand, the outcome turns out to have been somewhat better than the Reinhart-Rogoff thesis that when the cause of a recession is a financial crisis, the recovery tends to take many years.