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.
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.
Over the time frame of this chart, the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) component has shown the most consistent correlation with real GDP itself. When PCE has been positive, GDP has been positive, and vice versa. PCE in the latest update came at 1.72 of the 2.46 real GDP (rounded to 2.5). This is significantly better than the Q3 GDP of 1.3, and as the chart illustrates, the consumer was the major driver of change.
I’ll update this chart when the Second Estimate of Q3 GDP is released on November 22th.
