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2011 growth rates for the US: 1.5% UK: 1.1% EU: 1.6%.[1] Now the EU is more than the eurozone, but with the UK dragging down the non eurozone component, I can only imagine that euro-nations averaged above the 1.6% EU wide average and so outperformed the UK and US by a large margin (more than the 0.2%ppt margin of error anyway).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_real_GDP_g...

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Subtract the population growth rate and EU looks even better. Population growth rate EU 0.212% vs. US 0.97%.

Economic growth per person US = .5%, EU 1.4%.

The averages can hide all sorts of things. Without the mighty German industrial powerhouse, how do things stand?

Without the coastal states, how does the US stand?

Quite.

Germany real GDP growth per capita is very close to that average, so without the German industrial powerhouse, it would be pretty much the same.

In the Eurozone real GDP has contracted since the crisis according to this graph:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/more-coulda-been...

So a lot of the "growth" is just the economy recovering from the austerity/crisis-related policies. The Eurozone's real GDP contracted 5%, so even if we then outgrow the US by 0.5% every year it will still take us ages to catch up.

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