Billionaire Warren Buffett said Monday he believes the United States economy is in a recession, based on what he is seeing from the businesses owned by his holding company, Berkshire Hathaway.

Speaking on the U.S. business news channel CNBC, Buffett said the economy is in a recession "by any common-sense definition."

Warren Buffett
(Associated Press)

Buffett said his retail subsidiaries are seeing a significant slowdown. He also said millions of homeowners have lost equity in their homes due to falling prices.

A recession is commonly defined as two quarter of economic contraction, although the National Bureau of Economic Research, a leading U.S. economic think-tank, said its definition involves "a significant decline in economic activity," which also takes into account the depth of the decline, monthly indicators and factors other than real gross domestic product.

Last week, the U.S. government confirmed that economic growth for the fourth quarter of 2007 came in at an annual pace of just 0.6 per cent.

Several economists at some of the large investment banks have said they believe the U.S. in or very near recession.