Thought for the day

The Places that Matter


 
Last updated: 21 August 2024
 
Four areas of the world are now far ahead of all other places in both economic and political terms. They are China; the EU (although not a country it is a political and economic entity with many of the characteristics of a country); the USA and India. This list is in order of GDP size, calculated in Purchasing Power Parity terms with additional estimates for their Informal economies and for the age of the base years used to calculate their GDP's. The table below shows the relative size and growth characteristics of these areas:

The Four Giant Economies of the World in 2023
GDP PPP, Int$
The Places that Matter




No one can judge the likely size and growth of these now giant entities in the future with any hope of accuracy. But one might hesitantly advance the suggestion that the future shape of the world over the next few decades will to a large extent be decided in these four areas.

What is already clear is that when the global economy is not measured in US Dollars (as above), the economic power of the USA can be seen to have shrunk quite significantly since the beginning of the new Millennium, and it is already (counting the EU as a country-like entity) number 3 in terms of economic size.

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