GDP per capita in fastest-growing economies in Western Europe 1973-1998

In 1973, GDP per capita in Ireland was approximately 60 percent of the rate across Western Europe, but over the next quarter of a century it had grown to exceed Western Europe's rate by two percent. The given countries were considered peripheral economies in Western Europe for most of the late twentieth century, as their growth did not reflect the advances made in the major industrial powers of Germany, France, or the United Kingdom, however their growth in the final decades of the century surpassed these countries, bringing their economies more in line with the rest of the continent (although a difference remained between the Mediterranean countries and the rest of Western Europe). Between the given years, Ireland's GDP per capita saw the largest growth, increasing by 165 percent of its previous level. GDP per capita in the other countries also grew above the Western European average.