Here is the second installment in our new series Data Matters.
Following last week's inaugural post of data from John Cogan, this week Edward Lazear, a Hoover Senior Fellow, Stanford Professor of Economics, and former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, offers us a comparative assessment of U.S. economic growth since the summer of 2009. The chart shows average GDP growth in the G-7 countries, including the Q1 2012 preliminary figures.
Since we began to emerge from the economic wreckage of the Financial Crisis, the U.S. has experienced stronger economic growth than France, Italy, Japan, and the U.K. But economic growth in Germany and Canada has outstripped growth in the U.S. The pattern in the data is materially the same if we move our end point back to Q4 2011.
Click on the image below to enlarge.
The potential for a stronger economic recovery demonstrated by two of our peers supports a reassessment of the U.S. government's response to the Financial Crisis and economic policy actions over the last three years.
With Data Matters, we highlight data relevant to public policy that Hoover fellows are using in their research. We feature original data, data from another source that Hoover fellows are presenting in a new way, or data that fellows find helpful in shaping their own thinking.
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