Tables for Rates of Growth and Rates of Decline

Excerpts from the report: The task of estimating the changes in the various indicators of a country's economy over time is very important in economic analyses and foreign economic research. The measurement of growth or decline in such as population, income, production, trade, and many others are often done in terms of years and rates. We have found the following tables to be very helpful in our foreign economic research and decided to reproduce them so that other researchers might have access to them. The following growth tables are similar to the compound interest tables published in mathematical and statistical handbooks such as the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics. In addition, we are showing tables for the rates of decline. The tables given here indicate rates by tenths of a percent instead of by quarters and twelths of a percent as in most standard tables. Note that for greater convenience the axes of the tables are reversed from the usual; the rates are shown in the left column and the years of growth or decline appear as column headings. Among the many possible uses of these tables are: (1) to ascertain the rate of growth in a country's population for 1 up to 40 years, or (2) to project the level of per capita income at some future year, starting from a given level and assuming a constant compound rate of increase. Similar uses may be made of the tables showing the rates of decline on pages 17-29.