Corporate profits earned in the United States rose much more rapidly from 2005 through 2007 than had been earlier reported, making the subsequent fall seem even more precipitous, government figures showed Thursday.

The revised figures may help to explain the sense of pessimism that has been reported in surveys of consumers and business executives, said Robert Barbera, the chief economist of ITG, an economic research company. Pointing to the previous profit figures, some commentators had suggested there was more gloom than the economic data seemed to justify.

First-quarter profits earned in the United States by American companies have fallen 18 percent from their peak, the revised figures show, rather than the 11 percent previously reported.

That decline has been partly offset by soaring overseas profits for American companies. On Thursday, the government raised its estimate of those profits in the first quarter, even as it reduced its estimate of profits earned in this country.