Courtesy of Doug Short
The chart below is my way to visualize real GDP change since 2007. I’ve used a stacked column chart to segment the four major components of GDP with a dashed line overlay to show the sum of the four, which is real GDP itself.
Over this time frame, we see that the personal consumption expenditures component has shown the most consistent correlation with real GDP itself. When PCE has been positive, GDP has been positive, and vice versa.
Note: My data source for this chart is the Excel file accompanying the BEA’s latest GDP news release (see the links in the right column). Specifically, I used Table 2: Contributions to Percent Change in Real Gross Domestic Product.
