摘要：Europe, like much of the World economy, is in the
middle of a serious recession with GDP in many
countries having fallen significantly. Interestingly
enough, looking across the OECD countries, there
has not been a very strong correlation between the
rise in unemployment and the fall in GDP. For exam-
ple, in the last year (up to 2009 Q1), GDP in the
United States has fallen by 2.5 percent and unem-
ployment has risen by four percentage points. By
contrast, German GDP has fallen by 6 percent but
unemployment has risen by less than one percentage
point.On the other hand, Spanish GDP has fallen by
3.1 percent whereas unemployment has risen by
eight percentage points.
