This prompts me to await upwards the facts, presented inward the charts at left. The laissez passer on graph is annual gross domestic product growth. The bottom graph gives decade averages. Data here. The ruddy lines grade the 4% increase point. Notice the sorry disappearance of increase inward the 2000s.
Judge for yourself how far out of historical norms a destination of 4% increase is.
By my eye, avoiding a recession together with returning to pre-2000 norms gets y'all pretty close. A strong pro-growth policy tilt, cleaning upwards the obvious tax, legal, together with regulatory constraints drowning our Republic of Paperwork (HT Mark Steyn) solely needs to add together less than a percent on laissez passer on of that. 4% mightiness endure likewise depression a target!
Note the query asks nearly existent gross domestic product non per capita. Adding capitas counts. If y'all desire full gross domestic product to grow, regularizing the xi i chiliad k people who are hither together with letting people who desire to come upwards together with run together with pay taxes counts toward the number. You may combat amongst the wisdom of that policy, simply the indicate hither is nearly numbers.
This is non a serious respond to the query whether 4% increase is possible. The serious respond looks difficult at demographics together with productivity, estimates how far below the free-market nirvana grade of gross domestic product nosotros are, together with estimates how much faster free-market nirvana gross domestic product could grow. If y'all yell upwards that sand inward the gears or inadequate infrastructure or non plenty stimulus agency we're twenty percent below potential, together with potential tin move grow 2% per year, together with then 4% increase for a decade follows.
What happened inward the past times is largely irrelevant, since the the US has never experienced free-market nirvana. If y'all were to await inward 1990 at historical Chinese gross domestic product plots to assess whether it is possible for China to grow every bit it has for the final 25 years, you'd tell it's impossible. Conversely, if y'all were to await at postwar the US information you'd tell our lost decade of 2% increase tin move never happen.
But, having asked the query whether iv percent is exterior of all the US historical experience, at to the lowest degree it's interesting to know the answer.
Update. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 few commenters asked nearly my 10 yr average plot. I've updated it to include 2 ways of calculating the 10 yr increase rate. The venture business is the 10 yr percent increase charge per unit of measurement divided past times ten. The dashed business is the 10 yr average of i yr increase rates. You tin move also haggle nearly compounding, logs vs levels, which cost index to use, long-term inflation measuring (that tin move add together every bit much every bit 1%), whether roughly components of gross domestic product should endure excluded together with therefore on. Calculated either way, I conclude that 10 years of 4% increase is non an outlandish impossibility. After all, the policy choices existence advocated for 4% increase larn a expert bargain beyond rewinding the clock to just the policies together with laws of roughly bygone era. But brand upwards your ain minds.
Complete disclosure:
dgdp = 100*(gdp(2:end)./gdp(1:end-1)-1);
dgdp10 = 10*(gdp(1+10:end)./gdp(1:end-10)-1);
dgdp10a = filter(ones(10,1)/10,1,dgdp); 