A second observation is that, given the unprecedented magnitude of aid from the perspective of the donor community, the Marshall Plan in a quantitative sense played a smaller role than one would expect in accelerating the replacement and expansion of the European capital stock. Marshall aid accounted for less than 2.5% of the combined national incomes of recipient countries between 1948 and 1951.
While this is indeed a significant sum, this resulted in at most a 1% increase in investment, at a time when domestic investment was running at 15% of GNP. In other words, this does not explain growth rates several percentage points above their historic trend levels.