April 29, 2016
My guess is that many people reading this NYT article on Europe’s GDP growth will think that its 0.6 percent rate was only slighly better than the anemic 0.5 percent rate the U.S. had just reported for the first quarter. Actually, it is a lot better, because the the European Union (EU) rate is a quarterly growth rate, while the U.S. rate is an annualized growth rate. If the EU growth rate were also annualized, it would be approximately 2.4 percent.
In Europe and many other parts of the world it is standard to report growth figures at quarterly rates. In the United States they are always reported at annualized rates. This is no big deal as long as everyone is clear which rates they are using, but it is likely that many NYT readers will see the 0.6 percent figure and assume it is an annualized number. (The piece does indicate it is quarterly growth.)
The simplest solution would seem to be to just report all numbers as annual rates. It’s a pretty simply conversion that NYT economics reporters should be able to do in a second.
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