 In 2008, Towers Perrin reported that the cost of liability litigation has outpaced the growth of the GDP growth of 9% in estimated annual tort costs between 1951 and 2007 as opposed to a 7% average annual growth in GDP—representing 2.2% of GDP in 2004 vs. just 0.6% in 1950 and 1.3% in 1970.More recent research from the same source has found that tort costs as a percentage of GDP dropped between 2001 and 2009, and are now at their lowest level since 1984.The Tillinghast/Towers Perrin study has been criticized by the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank