For example, the ratio of debt service to disposable income peaked at 14.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2001, although it fell somewhat in 2002 as disposable income rose and interest rates declined. A few other indicators of financial pressures have also risen.
From 1960 up until the late 1970s average real output per capita growth was higher in the countries that now make up the euro area; in the 1980s it was roughly the same, but by the mid-1990s it was lower.