On Fri, Jun 27, 2003 at 08:51:17AM -0400, Erik Reuter wrote: > > years Austral France Germany Japan Sweden Switzrl UK US World > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- > 1900-20 7.8 1.0 -4.9 9.4 7.9 -9.4 0.2 2.5 0.8 > 1920-40 12.8 1.8 6.1 6.4 3.6 6.9 5.9 8.0 7.2 > 1940-60 6.0 3.8 5.7 -2.7 8.6 7.2 8.3 9.7 8.8 > 1960-80 2.7 0.0 0.6 5.9 1.1 2.5 2.5 2.4 3.2 > 1980-00 8.4 12.8 10.7 4.8 17.5 10.2 12.3 11.2 9.4 > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- > 1900-2000 > equities 7.5 3.8 3.6 4.5 7.6 5.0 5.8 6.7 5.8 > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- > 1900-2000 > Real GDP 3.3 2.4 2.8 4.1 2.6 2.7 1.9 3.3 2.9 > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- > 1900-2000 > Real GDP 1.6 2.0 1.8 3.0 2.0 1.8 1.4 2.0 2.1 > per cap > -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since no one has commented on it yet, I wanted to point out that the above data seem to contradict the conventional wisdom that Dan mentioned about America's system intrinsically promoting faster growth than Europe. Note that for equity returns 1900-2000, the US leads France, Germany, Switzerland, and UK, but Sweden beats the US, and UK is close behind the US. But as you can see, this is not an unbiased comparison, because during the first half of the century, Europe was more devastated by wars than America. Even so, Sweden and UK had equity returns close to America's. Note that during 1900-2000, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Sweden approximately matched the US in real GDP per capita growth (and Japan beat the US by a significant margin), but France and Germany had much lower equity returns than the US over this time period. Evidently an economy as a whole can recover nicely from the devastation of war, but the stock-holders take it on the chin. For a better comparison, look at 1960-1980. Switzerland and UK equity returns both slightly beat those of the US. And in 1980-2000, France, Sweden, and UK all beat US in equity returns. I'm not going to type in all the data, but for 1980-2000 real equity returns, Belgium was 11.4, Denmark 12.0, Ireland 12.7, Italy 10.1, Netherlands 16.1, and Spain 13.5. All but Italy beat the US. If we look at real annualized equity returns from 1960-2000, the US beats 7 European countries but loses to 4. The US certainly does NOT stand out as generating much higher real equity returns than Europe during 1960-2000. 9.2 Ireland 9.1 Sweden 8.1 Netherlands 7.3 UK 6.8 US 6.5 Switzerland 6.4 France 6.3 Denmark 5.7 Belgium 5.6 Germany 5.2 Spain 1.9 Italy -- "Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.erikreuter.net/ _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
