The CGAP measure of relative macroeconomic performance is attractive for a number of reasons. First, it is based on changes in real GDP, a fundamental variable that should be highly correlated with changes in underlying welfare. Second, our measure should not be unduly sensitive to the stage of an economy’s business cycle going into the crisis. An economy that was overheating prior to 2008 would tend to have a positive unexplained component at that point in time, but it is only the unexplained component during the crisis itself that is considered in our analysis. Third, this measure should be.
