Economic Growth in Australia/US - 1950 to 2015

Been looking into Economic Growth statistics over the last 60 odd years. The conference Board publish the historical data which is pretty interesting.
What I wanted to calculate was Output gaps (i.e The difference between Potential GDP Growth and Actual GDP growth, to kind of gain an insight into how Australia is doing. If Australia is doing poorly, it's actual GDP growth would be below the potential (I have classified a "Bust" as 2 Standard Deviations below the potential..if actual GDP growth is below that lower range, we are in potential recessionary conditions). Same with a Boom. (if actual GDP growth is above the 2 Standard Deviations above the potential, we are in Boom conditions). And the results are below





As you can see, the Australian recovery from 2008's recessionary conditions hasn't been great. Only just heading back into the "Safe zone". Also shows we haven't had a "boom" year since 1998, though 2007 did come close. And that "Recession we had to have" in 1991 really was a shocker.


Compare this to the US economic growth history for example. The US is whole less volatile, that is for sure.







Also shows how bad the 2007/2008/2009 GFC was for their economy. But it also shows how quickly they recovered to the "safe zone" To be fair though, the US hasn't had a "boom" year since 1984! Go "The Gipper"!