US Real GDP Growth Rate I am interested in finding the quarterly real GDP growth rate of US and have found the following two measures from IMF International Financial Statistics:



Which one should I choose (Dark Green or Light Green)?
It depends on what you want to look at. The blue line compares GDP of this period to the same period of the previous year. This is referred to "year-on-year" or "year-over-year" growth. The green line compares GDP of this period to the GDP of the previous period, "quarter-on-quarter (QoQ)" growth.

Because there's seasonality in the GDP (usually Q4 is the highest because of the holiday shopping), when you do QoQ growth you have to adjust for it, and that's where "seasonally adjusted" comes from.

Usually the year-on-year growth is what gets reported in the news.