This is regardless of whether the panel chart is better or not. I do like it somewhat by the way.

Additionally, I think I like the comparison to GDP % too.

I commented as such on their blog and at Excel Tips Monster’s blog.

It is not easy to make sense of the up and down of year over year percentage changes. It’s impossible to visually integrate all the changes to get the original curve. I’m not sure a bar chart is any easier to read:

As you point out, it’s easier to see what’s really happening if you look at the actual numbers, not the percentage change. Here is GDP, plus manufacturing and two measures of finance, one including finance and insurance, the other including real estate as well.

This simple chart answers your question, whether the economy is driven by finance or by manufacturing. The answer is that none of these individual components are a large fraction of GDP. Manufacturing ranges from 16% to 12% of GDP, finance itself is 6% to 8% of GDP, and finance including real estate is 18% to 21%. The rest of the economy is around two thirds of GDP.

The large dip in manufacturing may account for a slight slowing of GDP from 2001 to 2004. The dip in GDP in 2009 is reflected in all three components.

I think the growth rate should be a bar graph.

What could be a line graph is the GDP of the US. That would help show the relationship between a drop in growth rate and the actual impact on the whole of the economy. By looking at the graph as it is, we can’t tell how much (how many %) the GDP increased from 1997 to 2009, only the change in growth rates. Is that really helpful to us?

Basically, if we look at the economy as a baseline 100 in 1997, the GDP in 2009 with that growth rate would be 200 or so. Has the GDP of the US really doubled since 1997? And if it did, how much of an impact did manufacturing (100 -> 183) financial (100 -> 210) have on it. With the information provided, we just don’t know. In 1997-1998, it seems that manufacturing controls the trend. But in 1999, it changes to financial being the more weighted.

Since that wouldn’t make much sense, chances are that there are many other factors/industries that are having a more pronounced effect on the GDP growth rate, and it may be more effective to show those series (or at least exclude the ones listed if they are meaningless) to get some point across.

I would recommend three graphs in parallel:
1) A line chart showing the actual yearly GDP in the US from 1997 to present
2) A bar chart on the same scale showing manufacturing as a % of GDP
3) A bar chart on the same scale showing financial as a % of GDP

That way you can see if Manufacturing is growing or shrinking as a part of GDP, and whether Financial is growing or shrinking. You can also see how the economy as a whole fared, and compare booms and busts to the percentages of financial vs. manufacturing.

Your graph looks a lot cleaner than the originals, no doubt. I just think we should be asking a little more deeply what we’re trying to say.

(for anyone who wants to play, here is the data set I eyeballed):
,Total,Man.,Fin.
1997,9.5,4,17.5
1998,-1.5,-1.5,-9
1999,9,14.5,6
2000,11,16,4
2001,-2,-11,3
2002,4.5,9,-1
2003,4,4,10.5
2004,10.5,14.5,5
2005,9,11,10.5
2006,9.5,13,13
2007,9.2,3,15
2008,1,-5,6
2009,-1,-5,-1

I assume that’s the year-over-year change, since the caption has “Growth” in it.

In other words, using the start month as a 0, does each month go up or down from that (as a bar chart?), and what does the cumulative chart look like? Or is that the cumulative chart?