Investor Marc Vidal warns on COPE that the growth of Spanish GDP is explained by the increase in population since 2022, not by an improvement in productivity per capita.
The economic analysis by Marc Vidal on the programme Herrera en COPE, as reported by cope.es, focuses on the difference between the aggregate GDP growth and what each citizen actually perceives. Vidal has recalled that official data reflects a 0.7% increase in GDP in the second quarter, compared to 0.2% in Germany, France, and Italy, and a 2.7% annual rate, nearly three times that of the eurozone.
However, the investor has warned about the political use of these figures: "An electoral discourse rarely lies with the numbers, it lies with the denominator." Since 2022, Spain has added one and a half million people, which causes GDP to rise by inertia due to more people working and consuming. In 2019, GDP per capita was at 91% of the European average and today it remains at that same 91%, despite seven years of growth above other countries.
The average citizen, the one living in the denominator, feels that this aggregate does not add up for them.
Marc Vidal, investor
According to data from the INE cited by Vidal, domestic demand contributed 3.3 points to the year-on-year growth in the second quarter, while the external sector subtracted 6 tenths. The analyst describes this as "extensive growth": more hands are added to the labour market, but each person produces almost the same as in 2018.
Regarding the real income of households, which the Government places with a rise of 9%, Vidal clarifies that this calculation is obtained by adding all families. When dividing the figure per person using data from Eurostat, the effective increase is reduced to 6.3% over seven years, about 1,700 euros over the entire period.
The analyst has also pointed out that the country operates with budgets designed before the emergence of ChatGPT, which highlights their mismatch with the current reality.
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