NGDP Growth Within The Euro Area

Here is the cumulative NGDP-growth in the latest 5 year period, 2008 to 2012 for 12 euro area countries:

1)  Luxembourg +18.5%
2)  Slovakia       +17.1%
3)  Austria         +13.1%
4)  Germany      + 8.9%
5)  Finland         + 8.1%
6)  France         + 7.5%
7)  Estonia         +5.8%
8)  Netherlands  +5.1%
9)  Italy              +1.9%
10) Spain          - 0.2%
11) Portugal       -2.3%
12) Greece        -13.2%

That Greece is last probably surprises nobody, nor the relative weakness of Spain, Portugal and Italy.  Almost all probably also knew about Germany's relative strength. However, the fact that three countries, Luxembourg, Slovakia and Austria all had significantly faster growth than Germany was probably unknown to many.

It is interesting that the two richest countries, Luxembourg and Austria shared the top spot, with the second poorest, Slovakia. Luxembourg was unchanged first in per capita income, while Austria's higher growth allowed it to surpass the Netherlands and Slovakia's higher growth allowed it to surpass Estonia. It should be  noted though that as Luxembourg had the by far highest population growth, its relative per capita growth was in line with the average.

With cumulative average euro area inflation (domestic demand  deflator) at about 6-7%, this means that about half of the countries saw real gains and the other half still had a smaller economy in 2012 than in 2007.