Today’s Friday Graph is courtesy of prolific chart-maker Mark Perry:
In a New York Times editorial last year titled ‘Learning from Europe’ Paul Krugman wrote:
The story you hear all the time about Europe– of a stagnant economy in which high taxes and generous social benefits have undermined incentives, stalling growth and innovation – bears little resemblance to the surprisingly positive facts. The real lesson from Europe is actually the opposite of what conservatives claim: Europe is an economic success, and that success shows that social democracy works. The European economy works; it grows; it’s as dynamic, all in all, as our own.
The BEA recently released data for the amount of GDP produced by US states in 2010, which allows for an updated comparison with European countries (and Japan and Canada). See the table below (international countries are adjusted for PPP). Key findings:
1. The European Union as a group ($32,700 GDP per capita in 2010) ranks below America’s poorest state, Mississippi ($32,764).
2. Even relatively wealthy (by European standards) Switzerland would rank #32 as a US state, behind Georgia. The countries of Belgium and Germany would rank even lower at #46 and #47, and the United Kingdom, Finland, and France would be close to the bottom of American states, below #48 South Carolina.
3.Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal all rank below America’s poorest state (Mississippi) for GDP per capita.
On a similar PPP basis, New Zealand comes in at US$27,700, between Greece and Portugal.