Macroeconomic indicators by country

GDP, inflation, unemployment, debt, trade and more for every economy — time series, the latest months side by side, cross-country comparisons, a world map, the structure of an economy and how its indicators relate. Start with a country; keep the evidence close.

Time Series Analysis - Understanding Economic Trends

What this tab shows

The main chart plots the selected indicator, one line per selected country, for every year in the chosen range. The data is annual (one value per country per year), compiled by international statistical databases from national agencies and central banks.

The band above the tabs

Four figures for the first selected country, each with its own date: GDP growth in the last quarter (against the previous quarter, not annualised), consumer-price inflation and the unemployment rate for the latest month, and the central bank rate at the end of the latest month. Under each, the value a year earlier and a small line of the last 36 months (GDP: the last 12 quarters). A figure without a recent monthly series shows the latest yearly figure instead; a country without any monthly series shows the yearly band (GDP, GDP growth, inflation, unemployment).

Projections

For GDP growth, inflation, unemployment, government debt, GDP, GDP per head and population, a dotted line continues the recorded values over the next years, on a shaded band. It is a projection, not a recorded value: it is revised twice a year and has often been wrong around recessions and turning points. The switch above the chart turns it off. With projections on, two small charts beside it show the outlook of the other two headline measures (growth, inflation, debt). A country's projection is drawn only when the chosen range reaches its latest recorded year and that year is close to the first projected one; otherwise the note under the chart says that no projection is drawn for it.

Reading the lines

Slope: a rising line means the indicator increased from one year to the next; a falling line means it decreased. For an indicator that is itself a rate (GDP growth, inflation, unemployment), a falling line means the rate is lower, not that the underlying quantity shrank — GDP growth going from 3% to 1% is still growth.
Several countries: lines that move together suggest a common driver; lines that diverge point to country-specific developments.
Kinks: recessions, crises and policy changes usually appear as sharp turns in the line.

The year-over-year (YoY) chart

The second chart shows how much the indicator changed from the previous year. The unit depends on the indicator:

Indicators expressed in % (rates, shares of GDP): the change is the difference in percentage points (pp): YoY = value this year − value last year. Example: unemployment 5.0% → 4.2% gives −0.8 pp.
Indicators in money, people or index points (GDP, population, CPI index): the change is a percentage: YoY = (value this year / value last year − 1) × 100. Example: GDP 25.0 trillion → 25.5 trillion gives +2.0%.

A YoY bar above zero means the indicator rose that year; a bar that shrinks from one year to the next means the increase is slowing, even though the level is still rising. A change of sign marks a turning point.

Data considerations

Revisions: macroeconomic figures are revised, sometimes substantially, after first publication.
Method changes: statistical agencies periodically change definitions, which can create a step in a series that is not an economic event.
Coverage: not every indicator exists for every country and year; a line simply stops where data is missing.
Publication lag: the latest year available is often the previous calendar year or older.

Limitations

Lines that move together show co-movement, not cause. One annual point per year hides everything that happened within the year, and a country's series may mix data from different vintages and methods.

Educational tool only, not financial, economic, or policy advice. This data and content might be wrong and explains displayed metrics and model outputs and does not provide recommendations. Past patterns do not guarantee future results. Verify all information independently before relying on it.

Monthly data - The Latest Months Side by Side

What this tab shows

Four charts for up to five selected countries, over the last 2, 5 or 10 years (the choice above the charts): consumer-price inflation, the unemployment rate and the central bank rate, all monthly, and real GDP growth for the last eight quarters.

The measures

Inflation: the change of the consumer price level against the same month a year earlier, in %. European countries show the harmonised index (the same method across Europe) where it is current, the national index otherwise.
Unemployment rate: people looking for work as a % of the labour force, seasonally adjusted.
Central bank rate: the policy rate at the end of the month, drawn as steps (a step is a rate decision). Euro members show the euro-area deposit rate from the year they joined the euro. For the United States the line is the middle of the quarter-point target range.
GDP growth: real GDP against the previous quarter, seasonally adjusted, not annualised: 0.5% in a quarter is about 2% over a year.

Dates and gaps

Publication lag: monthly figures come out a few weeks after the month ends, quarterly GDP one to two months after the quarter, and not every country publishes on the same day. The line under each chart gives each country's latest month.
No line for a country: when a country's latest monthly figure is more than nine months old (or there is none), the chart leaves it out and names it under the chart rather than draw an old line as if it were current.
Revisions: recent months and quarters are often revised.

Limitations

Monthly figures are noisy: one month rarely makes a trend. Definitions differ slightly between countries, so small gaps between two lines are not always real differences.

Country Comparison - Cross-Economy Analysis

What this tab shows

For the selected indicator and the selected year, every country with data is sorted from the highest value to the lowest. The bar chart shows the top 20 of that list; the "Selected Countries" table shows, for each country chosen in the dropdown, its value, the selected year and its rank in the full list (rank 1 = highest value).

Reading the rank

Rank counts every reporting country, not only the selected ones. A rank of 45 with 180 countries reporting means 44 countries had a higher value that year.
Higher is not "better" for every indicator. Rank 1 on unemployment, inflation or debt/GDP is the country with the highest reading of that indicator.
Absolute versus per-capita: a large economy ranks high on total GDP and can rank quite differently on GDP per capita; the two indicators answer different questions.
Outliers: the extremes of the list are often small economies or special cases (resource-rich states, financial hubs, countries in crisis), so the top and bottom bars are the least representative.

Country groups in the dropdown

The country dropdown lists the countries under group headers (G7, G20, EU27, BRICS, Developed Asia, Nordic, DACH). The headers are only labels for picking countries; the ranking itself is always against every reporting country.

Data considerations

Different methods: countries do not all compile the same indicator the same way (unemployment definitions differ, for instance).
Different latest years: when a country has no value for the selected year, the table shows N/A rather than an older figure.
Currency basis: money indicators are in current US dollars unless the indicator name says otherwise; rankings in purchasing-power-parity terms can differ markedly.

Limitations

A rank is a snapshot on one indicator for one year. It says where a country sits in the distribution, not why, and moving one place can reflect a tiny difference in value when many countries are bunched together.

World Map - Geographic Distribution

What this tab shows

A world map in which each country is shaded by its value of the selected indicator in the selected year (a choropleth). The colour bar next to the map gives the scale: read a country's shade against that bar to get its approximate value; hovering a country shows the exact figure.

Reading the map

The colour bar is the legend. Its two ends are the lowest and highest values among the countries with data for that year, so the same shade means a different number for a different indicator or year.
Neighbouring countries with similar shades point to a regional pattern (shared trade partners, a shared currency, a common commodity exposure); they do not prove a common cause.
Countries without a fill have no data for that indicator and year.

The statistics card

Countries with data: how many countries report the indicator for that year — the sample the other three statistics are computed on.
Highest / Lowest: the country at each end of the distribution and its value.
Global Average: the simple arithmetic mean of the reporting countries' values: every country counts once, whatever its size. Example: three countries at 2%, 3% and 10% give an average of 5%, even if the 10% country is tiny. A population- or GDP-weighted average would differ.

Caveats of a map view

Area is not importance: a large country covers more of the map whatever its value; a small one can be hard to see even at an extreme value.
Scale stretching: one extreme country stretches the colour bar, which compresses the differences among all the others into similar shades.
One value per country: regional differences inside a country are invisible.
Borders are approximate and shown only to place the data.

Limitations

The map shows where values are high or low in one year; it does not show trends (use the Time Series tab) or explain the differences. Coverage varies by indicator, so a map with few filled countries is a thin sample and its average is not "global" in any strict sense.

Data Table - Raw Data View

What this tab shows

The raw numbers behind the other tabs: one row per year in the selected range, one column per selected country, for the selected indicator. The unit is printed in the card header above the table. Rows are ordered with the most recent year first.

Where the numbers come from

The data is compiled by international statistical databases from national statistical agencies and central banks. Each database harmonises definitions as far as it can, but a value is ultimately what the national source reported for that year.

Reading the values

Unit in the header	Meaning	Example
Current US$ (billions / trillions)	a money amount converted to US dollars at that year's exchange rate	GDP: $25.5T
US$ per capita	the money amount divided by the population	GDP per capita: $76,330
%	a rate (growth, inflation, unemployment)	GDP growth: 2.5%
% of GDP	a share of that year's GDP	Government debt: 120% of GDP
Index (base year = 100)	the value relative to a base year	CPI (2010 = 100): 125 means prices are 25% above the 2010 level
Persons	a head count	Population: 331 million

Missing values (N/A)

The country did not report the indicator for that year, or the year is not yet published.
The indicator does not apply to that country (for example a euro-area member has no national policy rate).
The compiling database withheld the value pending revision or for reliability reasons.

Limitations

Values reflect the data vintage cached by the app, which can lag the source's latest revision. For an official figure, the national statistical agency or the compiling organisation is the reference.

Multi-Indicator Analysis - Comparing Economic Metrics

What this tab shows

Several indicators for one country (the first country selected) on one chart, plus a correlation heatmap between those indicators and a summary table. Because the indicators have very different scales (GDP in trillions, inflation in single digits), the chart rebases them to a common index.

The normalised chart (base year = 100)

Each indicator is divided by its own value in one common base year (the start of the selected range, or the first year in the data) and multiplied by 100:

index in year t = value in year t / value in base year × 100

Example: GDP of 25.5 trillion in the base year and 30.6 trillion later → 30.6 / 25.5 × 100 = 120, i.e. 20% above the base year. A reading of 80 means 20% below. The lines therefore show each indicator's growth since the base year, not its level; two lines crossing means nothing about which indicator is "larger". An indicator that was near zero or negative in the base year (a budget balance, a growth rate in a recession year) produces a meaningless index and can swing wildly; one that was exactly zero in the base year has no index at all and its line is not drawn.

The correlation heatmap

The cell for two indicators is their Pearson correlation computed across the years in the range, on the yearly values. How to read a coefficient and its limits is described in the Correlations tab; the same scale applies here. Note that yearly levels of two growing series (GDP, population, the price index) are correlated simply because both trend upward.

The summary table

Latest: the most recent value in the range, in the indicator's own unit.
Change: the percentage change from the first year of the range to the latest year, computed on the value itself: (latest / first − 1) × 100. For an indicator that is already a rate this is a change of the rate: unemployment 5.0% → 4.0% shows −20.0%, not −1 pp.
Trend: the direction of a straight line fitted to the last five yearly values. ↑ if the fitted slope is positive, ↓ if negative, → ("stable") when the slope per year is smaller than 1% of the average of the indicator's absolute values over those five years.

Limitations

The base year drives the whole picture: moving the start of the range by one year rebases every line.
Five yearly points make the trend arrow sensitive to a single unusual year.
Correlations over one country's yearly data rest on few observations and are inflated by shared trends; a crisis or a pandemic year can dominate the coefficient.

Economic Structure - Sector Composition

What this tab shows

How each selected country's GDP splits between three broad sectors, year by year (the tab uses the first three selected countries): a stacked area chart per country, a chart comparing the countries' sector shares, and a table of how each share changed between the first and last year of the range. The shares are "value added, % of GDP" in the standard international classification.

The three sectors

Sector	What it covers	Examples
Agriculture	farming, forestry and fishing	crops, livestock, timber, fisheries
Industry	mining and quarrying, manufacturing, construction, electricity, water and gas	factories, oil and mineral extraction, building, utilities
Services	everything else	trade, transport, finance, public administration, health, education, IT

Mining sits in Industry, not Agriculture, in this convention (the international ISIC classification). A resource-exporting country therefore shows a large Industry band even with little manufacturing.

Reading the stacked area chart

The height of each band (labelled in the legend) is that sector's share of GDP in that year; the three bands add up to about 100%, with small gaps due to rounding, taxes and subsidies on products, and items the source could not allocate.
A band that widens over time is a sector taking a larger share of output; because the total is fixed at 100%, one band can only widen if another narrows.
A larger share does not mean the sector grew in absolute terms: agriculture's share can fall while its output rises, if the other sectors grow faster.

The structure-change table (pp = percentage points)

For each country and sector, the table gives the share in the first year of the range, the share in the last year, and the difference in percentage points:

change = share in last year − share in first year

Example: agriculture 20% of GDP → 15% of GDP is a change of −5 pp. It is not −25%: the percentage-point figure is the difference between the two shares, the percentage figure would be the relative drop of the share itself.

A shift of GDP from agriculture toward industry and then services is the pattern most economies have followed as they developed, which is why these three shares are used as a rough development marker.

Limitations

"Services" is very broad; two countries with the same services share can have completely different economies.
Informal activity is captured only partly, which understates agriculture and small-scale services in some countries.
Output shares differ from employment shares: a sector can produce a third of GDP with a tenth of the workforce.
The change table uses each sector's own first and last available year inside the range, so the start and end years can differ between sectors when data is missing.

Trend & Statistics - Quantitative Analysis

What this tab shows

Four summary cards for the first selected country (5-year and 10-year CAGR — or, for an indicator that is itself a rate, the average yearly change — 5-year trend, volatility), the indicator's lines with a fitted trend line for every selected country, a bar chart comparing the countries' 5-year CAGR, and a summary table with one row per country.

Compound annual growth rate (CAGR)

CAGR is the single yearly growth rate that would take the starting value to the ending value if growth had been the same every year:

CAGR = (end value / start value)^(1 / years) − 1

Example: a value of 100 that reaches 130 five years later → (130 / 100)^(1/5) − 1 = 5.39% per year. Note that 30% over five years is not 6% a year: compounding means each year's growth builds on the previous year's level. The 5-year figure uses the latest year and the value five years earlier (or the nearest earlier year with data); the 10-year figure does the same over ten years. CAGR is shown as N/A whenever the start or the end value is zero or negative, which is why it is often missing for indicators such as a budget balance or a trade balance.

For an indicator that is already a rate (GDP growth, inflation, unemployment, a balance in % of GDP) a compound rate would be misleading — the growth of a rate says nothing readable and fails from a zero or negative base — so the cards, the bar chart and the table show the average yearly change instead: (end value − start value) / years, in percentage points per year. Example: inflation going from 2% to 4% over five years shows +0.40 pp/yr.

The trend line and the trend arrow

The dashed line on the chart is the straight line that fits the yearly values best (least squares) over the whole range. The arrow on the card and in the table uses only the last five yearly values: ↑ when the fitted slope is positive, ↓ when negative, → ("stable") when the slope per year is smaller than 1% of the average of the indicator's absolute values over those five years.

Volatility (standard deviation)

The volatility card is the standard deviation of the yearly values in the selected range, in the indicator's own unit — the typical distance of a year's value from the average. Example: growth rates of 1%, 3%, 2%, 4% and 0% have an average of 2% and a standard deviation of about 1.6 pp. A larger figure means the series swung more from year to year; the number is only comparable between countries for the same indicator.

The summary table

Column	Meaning
Latest	the most recent value in the range
Min / Max	the lowest and highest yearly value in the range
CAGR-5yr / CAGR-10yr	the compound annual growth rate over the last 5 and 10 years (level indicators)
Avg Change-5yr / Avg Change-10yr	the average yearly change in percentage points over the last 5 and 10 years (rate indicators)
Trend	the 5-year trend arrow described above

Limitations

CAGR depends on only two points: an unusual start or end year (a recession, a currency shock) changes it completely, and it says nothing about the path in between.
A straight trend line cannot represent a cycle; a series that rose then fell can have a flat trend line that describes neither half.
Five yearly points make the arrow sensitive to one outlier year.
Money indicators in current US dollars include exchange-rate moves, so their CAGR mixes real growth, inflation and currency changes.

Correlation Analysis - Understanding Economic Relationships

What this tab shows

Correlations between series built from the selected countries and indicators (each series is one indicator for one country, one value per year). Four sub-tabs look at the same set of series in different ways: Matrix, Scatter, Rolling and Rankings.

What a correlation is

The Pearson correlation coefficient r measures how consistently two series move together across the years in the range:

r = covariance(x, y) / (std(x) × std(y))

It runs from −1 (whenever one is above its average the other is below, in proportion) through 0 (no straight-line relationship) to +1 (they rise and fall together in proportion). A common convention reads |r| above 0.7 as strong, 0.3 to 0.7 as moderate and below 0.3 as weak. Example: yearly GDP growth of 2, 3, 1, 4 and 0 against unemployment changes of −0.3, −0.5, +0.2, −0.8 and +0.6 gives r ≈ −0.99: the years with faster growth were the years unemployment fell. The coefficient measures direction and consistency, not size.

Matrix sub-tab

A grid with one cell per pair of series, the coefficient printed in the cell: green cells are positive, red cells negative, and the deeper the colour the stronger the link (−1 to +1). The diagonal (each series against itself) is left blank and the matrix is symmetric.

Scatter sub-tab

Pairwise scatter: one point per year for the two series chosen in the X and Y dropdowns, with a least-squares line. The panel reports R² (the correlation squared: the share of the Y series' yearly variation explained by the X series), the p-value, the slope (the change in Y that goes with a one-unit change in X) and Observations (the number of years used).
Scatter matrix (2 to 5 series): histograms of each series on the diagonal, pairwise scatters below it and the correlation coefficients above it.

Rolling sub-tab

For each chosen pair, the correlation recomputed inside a window that slides one year at a time, shown for 5-, 10- and 15-year windows. A line that stays at the same level means the relationship held throughout the range; a line that changes sign means it held only in part of it. A 5-year window contains five points and is very noisy; the 15-year window needs at least 15 years of data for both series before it draws anything.

Rankings sub-tab

Every pair of the selected series with enough overlapping years (at least ten, and neither series constant) is correlated over the range and listed:

Total Pairs: the number of pairs that qualified — at most k × (k − 1) / 2 for k series (6 series → up to 15 pairs), fewer when some pairs lack overlapping data.
Average Correlation: the arithmetic mean of all pair coefficients.
Significant (p<0.05) and Significance Rate: how many pairs have a p-value below 0.05, and that count as a share of all pairs.
Top 10 Positive / Top 10 Negative: the ten pairs with the highest and the ten with the lowest coefficient, each with its correlation, p-value and N (the number of overlapping years).

The p-value

The p-value is the probability of observing a correlation at least this far from zero if the two series were in fact unrelated, given N; below 0.05 is the conventional threshold for "statistically significant". It depends heavily on N: with 20 years a coefficient of about ±0.44 or more is significant, with 10 years it takes about ±0.63. Significance says the correlation is unlikely to be pure chance — not that it matters or what causes it.

Limitations

Not causation: one series may drive the other, the reverse, both may respond to a third factor, both may simply trend over time, or the match may be chance in a short sample; r cannot tell these apart.
Few observations: one point per year; a 20-year range is 20 points, and the rolling windows use far fewer.
Trends: series that both grow (GDP, population, price indices) are correlated on levels regardless of any economic link; the Cross-Module tab works on changes for this reason.
Breaks and gaps: a crisis or policy change inside the range yields one coefficient that describes neither period; a pair is correlated only over the years both series have data, so N differs across pairs.
Linear only: a relationship that bends (a threshold effect, for instance) is understated by r.

International Trade - Understanding Trade Flows

What this tab shows

Four cards for the first selected country (trade balance with its 5-year trend arrow, exports, imports, goods trade), a trade-balance chart for the selected countries (the tab uses the first five), an exports-versus-imports chart for the first country, a Trade Summary table, two goods-trade charts (a comparison for the end year and the trend over the range) and a correlation heatmap. All figures are annual.

The four measures

Measure	Definition	Unit
Trade balance	`exports − imports` of goods and services	US$ billions (current dollars)
Exports	value of exports of goods and services divided by GDP	% of GDP
Imports	value of imports of goods and services divided by GDP	% of GDP
Goods trade	`(merchandise exports + merchandise imports) / GDP` — goods only, so it is not the sum of the two rows above	% of GDP

Example: exports of goods and services of 1,500 bn, imports of 1,800 bn and GDP of 6,000 bn give a trade balance of −300 bn (a deficit), exports of 25% of GDP and imports of 30%. If the goods part alone is 1,000 bn each way, merchandise openness is (1,000 + 1,000) / 6,000 = 33%. Openness can exceed 100% when a country re-exports much of what it imports or when its GDP is small relative to the goods passing through it.

Reading the charts

Trade balance: above zero is a surplus (exports larger than imports), below zero a deficit. The card's arrow is the direction of a straight line fitted to the last five years.
Exports vs imports: the two lines are exports and imports as % of GDP; the shaded area between them marks a surplus where the exports line is the higher one and a deficit where the imports line is; the caption under the chart says which shade is which, and hovering the area names it.
Goods trade comparison and trend: the countries' goods trade in the last year of the range side by side, and its path over the range.
Trade correlations: for the first country only, the correlation across years between the trade series and a few economic indicators (GDP growth, GDP per capita, the industry share of GDP); the Correlations tab explains the coefficient.

Surplus and deficit are descriptions, not grades

A surplus means the country sold more abroad than it bought; it can come from strong exporters or from weak domestic demand. A deficit means it bought more than it sold; it can come from strong domestic spending or from a loss of export share. The balance also mirrors the flow of capital: a country running a trade deficit is, by accounting identity, receiving net financing from abroad.

Limitations

Goods versus services: services trade is measured less precisely than goods trade.
Multinationals: internal pricing between subsidiaries shifts recorded exports and imports between countries.
Re-exports: trade hubs record goods passing through, which inflates both exports and imports relative to what the economy produces.
Currency: the balance is in current US dollars, so exchange-rate moves change it without any change in volumes; the % of GDP measures are unaffected by this only when numerator and denominator are converted at the same rate.

Understanding Cross-Module Correlation Analysis

### What this tab does It correlates government-bond series (yields, country spreads, term spreads) with macroeconomic indicators (GDP growth, inflation, unemployment, real interest rate, government debt, budget balance, exports, trade balance) for the selected countries and year range. Bond data is daily and macro data is annual, so everything is first brought to one observation per year. ### How the series are prepared 1. **Annual averages.** Each daily bond series is replaced by its average over each calendar year. 2. **Transform.** Each series is turned into the form that is correlated: - **Bond yields and spreads:** the change from one year's average to the next, in percentage points. - **Macro rates** (GDP growth, inflation, unemployment, real interest rate): used as they are. These are already yearly rates of change; differencing them again would measure the change of a change. - **Macro ratios in % of GDP** (government debt, budget balance, exports): the year-on-year change in percentage points. - **Trade balance (in US dollars):** the year-on-year change in dollars. 3. **Alignment.** Only years where every selected series has a value are kept. Correlating levels instead of changes is avoided because two series that both trend for a decade look correlated even if their yearly moves are unrelated. Example: debt/GDP 95% → 98% is a +3 percentage-point change; a 10-year yield averaging 3.1% one year and 2.6% the next is a −0.5 change. ### What is displayed - **Correlation matrix:** one cell per pair of series; the colour scale in the legend is labelled "Correlation" and runs from −1 (the two move in opposite directions year after year) through 0 (no straight-line relationship) to +1 (they move together in proportion). The diagonal is 1. - **Rolling correlation:** the coefficient recomputed inside a window that moves one year at a time, for 3-, 5- and 10-year windows. It shows whether a relationship held throughout the range or only in part of it. A 3-year window contains only three points, so its line is very noisy. - **Top & Bottom Correlations:** a table of the pairs with the highest and the lowest coefficients, with their p-values. - **Scatter plot:** one point per year for the pair chosen in the First Series / Second Series dropdowns, with the year as label and a least-squares line. - **Time series comparison:** the same two series overlaid on one chart (one axis each), so the years in which they moved together can be seen directly. - **Lagged correlation:** the same pair correlated after shifting the first series by −2, −1, 0, +1 or +2 years. At a positive lag the first series' value from *lag* years earlier is paired with the second series' current value, so a high bar at +1 or +2 means the **first** series leads (moves first); at a negative lag it is the second series' earlier value that is paired, so a high bar at −1 or −2 means the second series leads. The bar with the largest absolute value shows at which offset the two line up best. ### Formulas - `r = covariance(x, y) / (std(x) × std(y))`, with x and y the transformed yearly series. - The **p-value** is the probability of seeing a correlation at least this large if the true correlation were zero, given the number of years. With 20 years of data a correlation of about ±0.44 or larger has a p-value below 0.05; with 10 years the bar is about ±0.63. ### Limitations - **Few observations.** A 20-year range gives 20 points per series, and the rolling and lagged views use even fewer. Small samples produce large correlations by chance; the p-value helps but does not remove this. - **Correlation is not causation.** Both series may respond to a third factor, or one may respond to the other with a delay the annual data cannot resolve. - **Structural breaks.** Policy regimes, crises and changes in how a statistic is compiled alter relationships mid-sample. - **Timing.** Bond markets react to expectations and often move before a change shows up in annual macro data; the lag view is a coarse check of this. - **Data revisions.** Macro indicators (international statistical databases, national statistics) are revised after first publication; the bond data comes from financial data providers.

Government Debt & Fiscal Policy - Key Concepts

What this tab shows

Four cards for the first selected country (government debt, its change over five years, debt service, budget balance), a debt-level chart for the selected countries (the tab uses the first five), a budget-balance bar chart for the first country with a Fiscal Balance Statistics card, revenue and debt-service charts, a scatter of debt against the real interest rate, and, for the first country only, a correlation heatmap between the fiscal series and a few economic indicators (GDP growth, inflation, unemployment). All figures are annual.

The measures

Measure	Definition	Unit
Government debt	the total amount the government owes at year end	% of GDP
5yr Debt Change	`debt/GDP this year − debt/GDP five years earlier`	percentage points
Budget balance	`revenue − spending` in the year; below zero is a deficit, above zero a surplus	% of GDP
Debt service	interest plus principal repaid in the year on external debt	% of gross national income (GNI)
Revenue	what the government collected in the year, excluding grants received	% of GDP
Real interest rate	the lending rate after removing inflation (GDP-deflator based): approximately `rate − inflation`; the exact form used by the data source is `(1 + rate) / (1 + inflation) − 1`	%

Example for the real rate: a lending rate of 6% with 4% inflation gives 1.06 / 1.04 − 1 = 1.92% (the shortcut gives 2.0%). Example for the balance: revenue of 30% of GDP and spending of 38% give a balance of −8% of GDP, a deficit.

Debt is a stock, the balance is a flow

Balance (flow): the shortfall or surplus of one year — like a household's overspending or saving in one month.
Debt (stock): what has accumulated from all past shortfalls — like the household's outstanding loan balance.
A deficit adds to the debt; a surplus reduces it or slows its growth. The debt ratio can still fall during deficits when GDP grows faster than the debt.

The Fiscal Balance Statistics card

Years in Surplus / Years in Deficit: how many years in the range the balance was above / below zero.
Average Balance: the arithmetic mean of the yearly balances in the range, in % of GDP.
Worst Deficit: the lowest balance in the range and the year it occurred.

Debt dynamics: the rate–growth gap

The debt ratio's own drift depends on the gap between the real interest rate the government pays (r) and real GDP growth (g). With r below g the ratio drifts down on its own, so a moderate deficit before interest (a "primary" deficit) can still leave it stable; with r above g the ratio drifts up and a primary surplus is needed to hold it. The scatter on this tab places each country-year by its debt ratio and the economy's real lending rate; that rate is a general borrowing cost, not the government's own, so the scatter is a descriptive pairing rather than a direct reading of r − g.

Limitations

What counts as debt: pension promises and state guarantees are usually outside the figure; the debt of state enterprises and regional governments may be inside or outside depending on the source's definition (general versus central government).
No asset side: the debt figure ignores what the government owns.
Debt service covers external debt only and is scaled by GNI, not GDP, so it is not directly comparable with the other ratios.
Currency and holders: debt in the country's own currency held at home behaves very differently from foreign-currency debt held abroad; the ratio alone does not show this.

Disclaimer

Slowio is an educational and analytical tool. Nothing on this page is investment advice, a recommendation or an offer to buy or sell any security. Figures come from public statistics and market data that may contain errors or delays; always verify against primary sources and do your own research before taking any decision.