Recessions, as the name indicates, are when economic output shrinks. So to technically indicate a recession, a country's GDP has to be going backward. Economists declare the recession over whenever the slide stops and the economy starts creeping up again -- no matter how deep the hole it fell into. If you topple down a well a mile deep, the experts basically say the crisis is over once you've climbed back a few inches.
Maybe this is a better definition of the end of a recession: when you get back to the top of the well. We reached that point according to last quarter's GDP figures, says Bloomberg:
Today's economy is adding the marginal GDP that economists once expected to come years ago.
