Greece's growth through the decades: a lost decade and comparisons with Med peers

I was once again browsing through AMECO data and thought that taking a look at how Greece has fared over the years (growth-wise), from 1960 till today, would be interesting. The result is the following post where I have plotted all decades’ GDP growth together.

To get a better sense of the international setting of each decade I plotted Greece’s growth rates against other Med countries whose position in the development spectrum is closer to ours than other Euro Area nations.

The current post has the potential to be considered politicized and since this was not my intention when plotting the charts, I will go light on the words.

source: AMECO, own calculations

In the 60s Greece was the fastest grower out of the other southern European countries featured in the chart.

source: AMECO, own calculations

In the 70s too, Greece again grew, cumulatively, faster than the other 3 countries. Along with the 60’s, the 70s were the easy part of the catch-up growth phase for Greece and easy growth ran its course with’ em.

source: AMECO, own calculations

In the 80s Greece, was by far, the laggard among the four. This was Greece’s version of a lost decade. All other countries advanced at an almost even pace.

source: AMECO, own calculations

In the 90s Greece grew faster that the previous decade with Italy being the group's laggard.

source: AMECO, own calculations

 In the 00s, Greece was once more the growth leader of the group, with Italy and Portugal muddling through their own versions of a lost decade. Not going to expand on the reasons behind that particular growth-spurt in Greece, I’ve done so on numerous older posts.

source: AMECO, own calculations

I don’t need to say that the current decade is nightmare-ish for Greece and that we’re experiencing a full-blown depression since we’ve all been feeling this to out bones.

source: AMECO,own calculations

Well, that’s a wrap ladies and gents. This one was not a words-heavy post but I hope that you found the charts interesting. I currently am a bit rusty on the writing side since I don’t write much (or at all) lately so be patient with my posts. Cheers…

P.S. I called the 80s and not the current one, Greece’s lost decade, not because the jury is still out but because this one will be awfully worse.