What Paul Gregory is Writing About: covid economic crisis lockdown weekly GDP Austria

Friday, May 22, 2020

German Speaking Europe Reports Huge GDP losses but Is the Crisis Letting Up?

Austria’s Weekly GDP Figures Point to Declining Losses as the Economy Adjusts, but the Losses Throughout German Speaking Europe Are Huge.

The Austrian National Bank has developed weekly measures of GDP, based on flash measures such as credit card transactions, truck border crossings, and electricity usage. These figures show a 25 percent decline in real GDP compared to the pre-crisis figures, with the low point reached end of March. The Swiss Economics Secretariat calculates a similar drop. German statistical authorities report a slightly smaller (15-20%) decline in economic activity. Notably, the Austrian weekly GDP figures show declining economic losses. By May 11, weekly GDP was some 11 percent below the previous year’s figure.

For charts, see https://www.nzz.ch/wirtschaft/coronavirus-und-die-wirtschaft-eine-bilanz-der-schaeden-ld.1557344

Who Am I?

Paul R. Gregory is a Research Fellow, Hoover Institution
Cullen Professor of Economics, University of Houston. He is also a research professor at the German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin. He is chair emeritus of the International Advisory Board of the Kyiv School of Economics. He serves as co-editor of the Yale-Hoover Series on Stalin, Stalinism, and Cold War. He has co-edited archival publications, such as the seven volume History of Stalin's Gulag (2004) and the three-volume Stenograms of Meetings of the Politburo (2008). Gregory is the organizer of the Hoover Sino-Soviet Archives Workshop that takes place in the summer at the Hoover Institution.
His recent publications include Lenin's Brain and Other Tales from the Secret Soviet Archives (Hoover 2004) and Terror by Quota (Yale, 2009).

Paul Gregory has a regular blog Forbes.com