Wednesday 3 July 2013

European GDP Statistics

Much is written about GDP in Europe these days. So I thought I'd have a look and see what the actual figures are and what has changed in them over the last few years.

I obtained the figures from Eurostat. The figures in question were the GDP per capita figures and the GDP figures were from the 'nama_gdp_c' data set.

The first chart below shows the average relative GDP for separate European countries from 2000 to 2014 (forecasted) indexed on Germany.


I then looked at the growth in GDP for each of the top 5 countries by indexing the GDP for each year on the GDP for 2000.



As you can see, the UK has shown the largest relative drop, although it seems to be growing fairly well since 2009. It's still not back at the levels it was at in 2007 though. The other 4 countries show a small decline in 2009.

The third chart shows the GDP per capita in PPS. To quote Eurostat:


Gross domestic product (GDP) is a measure for the economic activity. It is defined as the value of all goods and services produced less the value of any goods or services used in their creation. The volume index of GDP per capita in Purchasing Power Standards (PPS) is expressed in relation to the European Union (EU27) average set to equal 100. If the index of a country is higher than 100, this country's level of GDP per head is higher than the EU average and vice versa. Basic figures are expressed in PPS, i.e. a common currency that eliminates the differences in price levels between countries allowing meaningful volume comparisons of GDP between countries. Please note that the index, calculated from PPS figures and expressed with respect to EU27 = 100, is intended for cross-country comparisons rather than for temporal comparisons.

Therefore it shows the GDP per capita in PPS relative to the EU as a whole.



On this measure Italy has dropped the most, closely followed by the UK. Germany has actually grown. But remember these figures are relative to the EU. Therefore even if Germany looks like it's growing, on this measure, it's only against the rest of Europe.

Anyway, of the 5 big EU countries, the UK seems to be doing quite badly.

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