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Terry McCrann makes the salient point today in the Herald-Sun that “Australia’s per capita GDP growth during Covid when the borders were shut was double that of the previous two years, when immigration was running at 250,000 a year”.
McCrann is mostly correct. Over the 2018 and 2019 Calendar years, Australia’s GDP per capita grew by 1.5%, whereas it grew by 2.7% over the 2020 and 2021 calendar years when Australia’s borders were mostly shut to international arrivals.
In fact, the next chart shows that Australia’s real GDP per capita has grown above its pre-COVID trend during the pandemic (pandemic quarters in red):
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About the author
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness.
Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.