NBER's Feldstein sees U.S. downturn since Dec-Jan

PARIS (Reuters) - Martin Feldstein, President of the National Bureau of Economic Research, said in a newspaper interview published on Monday he had seen a clear reversal in U.S. monthly economic indicators since December or January.

The NBER typically declares start and end dates for U.S. recessions, and Feldstein told French daily Les Echos the current crisis was different to the two last U.S. recessions and it was too early to tell if this one would be deep.

Asked where the U.S. recession was, he said: "Everything depends on what you mean by recession. If you look at monthly indicators, the trend has clearly been reversed since December-January.

"Industrial production, real income, employment, retail sales -- on these fronts, February was terrible, March was slightly less bad, and it is not because in April we saw smaller falls than expected that we should celebrate," he said.

(Reporting by Francois Murphy)