First, the dispersion of real GDP growth rates across the euro area countries, measured by the standard deviation in unweighted terms, has been fluctuating around a level of 2 percentage points, and has shown no apparent upward or downward trend over the past 35 years.
However, since 1999, the degree of dispersion in annual average terms, also measured by the unweighted standard deviation, has declined among the euro area countries and in the last year is estimated to have  BIS Review 20/2007  1  declined further to slightly below 1.5 percentage points.