Recession of 2009/Tutorials

Economic Statistics of the Recession

United States

Growth rates

(Percentage change at an annual rate )

	2007	2008 I	2008 II	2008 III	2008 IV	2009 I
GDP	2.3	0.9	2.8	-0.5	-6.2
Consumption	2.2	0.9	1.2	-3.8	-4.3
Business investment	6.4	2.4	2.5	-1.7	-21.0
Residential construction	-19.0	-25.5	-13.3	-16.1	-22.2

(Source: US Department of the Treasury [1])

Unemployment rates

(per cent - seasonally adjusted)

	Jan	Feb	March	April	May	June	July	Aug	Sept	Oct	Nov	Dec
2008	4.9	4.8	5.1	5.0	5.5	5.6	5.8	6.2	6.2	6.6	6.8	7.2
2009	7.6	8.1

(Source: US Department of Labor [2])

United Kingdom

Growth rates

(Percentage change at an annual rate )

	2007	2008 I	2008 II	2008 III	2008 IV	2009 I
GDP	3.0	1.6	0.0	-2.8	-6.0
Household expenditure	3.3	3.8	-1.0	-0.8	-2.8
Fixed capital investment	7.2	-11.0	-5.0	-13.8	-8.9

(Source UK National Statistics [3])

House prices

(per cent change on previous period)

2008 II	2008 III	2008 IV	2008 Dec	2009 Jan	2009 Feb
-5.1	-5.6	-5.2	-1.6	2.0	-2.3

{Source: Halifax Building Society)

International comparisons

GDP growth rates

(per cent change on previous quarter)

	2007 IV	2008 I	2008 II	2008 III	2008 IV	2009 I
United States	0.0	0.2	0.7	-0.1	-1.0
United Kingdom	0.9	0.3	0.0	-0.7	-1.6
Japan	0.5	0.6	-1.0	-0.5	-3.3
Germany	0.3	1.4	-0.4	-0.5	-2.1
France	0.4	0.4	-0.3	0.1	-1.2
Italy		0.4	-0.6	-0.6	-1.8
Austria		0.5	0.2	0.0	-0.2
Sweden		-0.6	-0.5	-1.0	-2.4
Switzerland		0.1	0.1	0.1	-0.3
Iceland		-1.6	4.7	-3.4

(Source: Eurostat [4])

Unemployment rates

(ILO definition, seasonally adjusted)

	2007 IV	2008 I	2008 II	2008 III	2008 IV
United States	4.8	4.9	5.4	6.0	6.9
United Kingdom	5.1	5.1	5.4	5.8	6.3
Japan	3.8	3.9	4.0	4.1	4.0
Germany	8.0	7.6	7.4	7.5	7.9
France	7.8	7.6	7.7	7.7	8.0

(Source: OECD)

Fiscal stimulus packages

( % of GDP)

	2008	2009	2010	Total
United States	1.1	2.0	1.8	4.8
United Kingdom	0.2	1.4	-0.1	1.5
Germany	0.0	1.5	2.0	3.4
France	0.0	0.7	0.7	1.3
Japan	0.4	1.4	0.4	2.2
Canada	0.0	1.5	1.3	2.7

(Source: IMF estimates[5])

Public Debt

( % of GDP )

	Japan	Italy	France	Germany	United States	United Kingdom	China	Australia
2007	195	107	65	65	62	44	20	9
2014 est	222	118	79	77	100	76	19	4

(Source: IMF March 2009 [6])