Problema Solution
If the national economy shrank at an annual rate of 44% per year for three consecutive years, then the economy shrank by 12% over the three-year period.
Answer provided by our tutors
Each year, you are multiplying the current value by (1-0.44) = 0.56, which means by the end of the third year the economy will be 0.56^3= 0.175616 of the start.
That means the actual percentage of decrease over the three years is 1 - 0.175616 = 0.824384 or 82.44%.