A Race for Growth and Convergence Greece’s Economic Performance: 1960-2013

This report offers a quantitative assessment of Greece’s economic performance from the early 60s until 2013. During this period, real per capita GDP in Greece increased by a factor of 3.59. This performance corresponds to an annual average growth rate equal to 2.41%. At the same time, the ratio of Greek real per capita GDP over the respective figure of other developed market economies was far from constant. In fact, an examination of the data reveals long periods of continuous convergence (e.g. 1960-1979) followed by long periods of continuous divergence (e.g. 1979-1995). We focus on the supply side of the economy and use standard economic theory (a technique which is known as growth accounting) to quantify the sources (contributing factors) of growth. Using a framework that is based on neoclassical growth theory, we decompose the growth rate of real per capita GDP into three factors.