The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) announced that the U.S. economy entered a recession in March 2001. Some have questioned whether the recent downturn really qualifies as a recession, as by some measures it has been quite mild. For example, the broadest measure of the economy’s output, real gross domestic product (GDP), experienced only a modest decline in the current recession. However, given that more timely measures of economic activity are available, the NBER gives relatively little weight to GDP in determining recession dates.