Unexpectedly Intriguing!
23 December 2008

U.S. and EU Map, 2007 Once again, for no reason other than that it's really popular (and that we actually received an e-mail requesting an update), we've thrown the nations of the European Union into an economic cage match against the individual United States to find out where they all rank with respect to each other!

In our version of an economic cage match, the only deciding factor is how each nation ranks with respect to each others Gross Domestic Product (GDP) adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), population and their GDP-PPP per Capita. What makes this version different from last year's smackdown is that we've updated it all, using data exclusively from 2007.

We've put this data into the dynamic table you see below, which will allow you to sort the data in the table by clicking on the various column headings. Doing so will almost instantaneously sort the data in the table from low to high value or from high to low (by clicking a column heading a second time.) To restore the original order, you'll need to refresh this page in your web browser.

We'll have some more commentary below the table - in the meantime, you know you can't resist....

2006 GDP-PPP Rankings of EU Nations vs Individual US States
US State or EU Nation 2007 GDP-PPP
[billions USD]
2007 Population 2007 GDP-PPP
per Capita [USD]
United States - All 13,743.02 301,621,157 45,563.85
US - Alabama 165.80 4,627,851 35,825.70
US - Alaska 44.52 683,478 65,133.04
US - Arizona 247.03 6,338,755 38,971.06
US - Arkansas 95.37 2,834,797 33,642.97
US - California 1,812.97 36,553,215 49,598.04
US - Colorado 236.32 4,861,515 48,611.18
US - Connecticut 216.27 3,502,309 61,749.55
US - Delaware 60.12 864,764 69,519.55
US - District of Columbia 93.82 588,282 159,479.64
US - Florida 734.52 18,251,243 40,244.88
US - Georgia 396.50 9,544,750 41,541.58
US - Hawaii 61.53 1,283,388 47,944.97
US - Idaho 51.15 1,499,402 34,112.93
US - Illinois 609.57 12,852,548 47,427.95
US - Indiana 246.44 6,345,289 38,838.10
US - Iowa 129.03 2,988,046 43,180.73
US - Kansas 117.31 2,775,997 42,256.89
US - Kentucky 154.18 4,241,474 36,351.51
US - Louisiana 216.15 4,293,204 50,346.08
US - Maine 48.11 1,317,207 36,522.73
US - Maryland 268.69 5,618,344 47,822.81
US - Massachusetts 351.51 6,449,755 54,500.36
US - Michigan 381.96 10,071,822 37,923.92
US - Minnesota 254.97 5,197,621 49,055.14
US - Mississippi 88.55 2,918,785 30,336.60
US - Missouri 229.47 5,878,415 39,036.03
US - Montana 34.25 957,861 35,759.89
US - Nebraska 80.09 1,774,571 45,133.73
US - Nevada 127.21 2,565,382 49,588.33
US - New Hampshire 57.34 1,315,828 43,577.88
US - New Jersey 465.48 8,685,920 53,590.64
US - New Mexico 76.18 1,969,915 38,670.70
US - New York 1,103.02 19,297,729 57,158.23
US - North Carolina 399.45 9,061,032 44,083.94
US - North Dakota 27.73 639,715 43,339.61
US - Ohio 466.31 11,466,917 40,665.59
US - Oklahoma 139.32 3,617,316 38,515.57
US - Oregon 158.23 3,747,455 42,224.12
US - Pennsylvania 531.11 12,432,792 42,718.48
US - Rhode Island 46.90 1,057,832 44,335.96
US - South Carolina 152.83 4,407,709 34,673.34
US - South Dakota 33.93 796,214 42,619.20
US - Tennessee 243.87 6,156,719 39,610.22
US - Texas 1,141.97 23,904,380 47,772.21
US - Utah 105.57 2,645,330 39,907.31
US - Vermont 24.54 621,254 39,505.58
US - Virginia 382.96 7,712,091 49,657.61
US - Washington 311.27 6,468,424 48,121.46
US - West Virginia 57.71 1,812,035 31,848.72
US - Wisconsin 232.29 5,601,640 41,468.75
US - Wyoming 31.51 522,830 60,275.81
European Union - All 14,430.00 490,426,060 29,423.40
EU - Austria 322.00 8,199,783 39,269.33
EU - Belgium 376.50 10,392,226 36,229.00
EU - Bulgaria (*) 86.71 7,322,858 11,841.01
EU - Cyprus 21.40 788,457 27,141.62
EU - Czech Republic (*) 251.00 10,228,744 24,538.69
EU - Denmark 203.30 5,468,120 37,179.14
EU - Estonia (*) 28.69 1,315,912 21,802.37
EU - Finland 188.40 5,238,460 35,964.77
EU - France 2,075.00 63,718,187 32,565.27
EU - Germany 2,807.00 82,400,996 34,065.12
EU - Greece 327.60 10,706,290 30,598.83
EU - Hungary 191.70 9,956,108 19,254.51
EU - Ireland 191.60 4,109,086 46,628.37
EU - Italy 1,800.00 58,147,733 30,955.64
EU - Latvia (*) 40.05 2,259,810 17,722.73
EU - Lithuania (*) 59.98 3,575,439 16,775.56
EU - Luxembourg 38.14 480,222 79,421.60
EU - Malta 9.40 401,880 23,390.07
EU - Netherlands 645.50 16,570,613 38,954.50
EU - Poland 623.10 38,518,241 16,176.75
EU - Portugal 232.30 10,642,836 21,826.89
EU - Romania (*) 247.10 22,276,056 11,092.63
EU - Slovakia 110.20 5,447,502 20,229.46
EU - Slovenia 56.19 2,009,245 27,965.73
EU - Spain 1,361.00 40,448,191 33,647.98
EU - Sweden 338.50 9,031,088 37,481.64
EU - United Kingdom 2,130.00 60,776,238 35,046.59

Sources and Acknowledgements:

The GDP and population data for the United States as a whole, as well as for the European Union as a whole, was obtained by adding up the state and national values we found for each. GDP-PPP per capita was found by dividing each region's 2007 GDP figure by its population estimate as of July 1, 2007.

We will note that the CIA's estimate of GDP-PPP for some European nations for 2007 is really different from what they indicated for 2006. For instance, nations such as Greece, the Netherlands and Spain would have effectively seen their GDP-PPP per Capita grow by more than 20%, even though the CIA also indicates that economic growth in these nations has been growing at comparatively moderate rates.

We wondered if that might be an effect of the relative valuations of the U.S. dollar with respect to the Euro, but we would then expect nations like France and Germany to also have similarly high levels of year-over-year GDP-PPP per Capita growth, but that's just not the case - their year over year growth is in the single digits.

So, we just might have a mystery! We don't know why the 2007 GDP-PPP for these nations is so different from what it was in 2006.

A Cage Match Contest

Since this kind of ranking invariably draws commentary from other quarters of the blogosphere, we thought it might be fun to try an experiment - why not have an open contest for the blog that can best explain why the data is the way that it is?

For our part, we'll be happy to link to, and possibly excerpt analysis from, the blogs that drive the most traffic to this post (in other words, you don't need to e-mail us to enter - you just need to link to us from your post that proposes a solution to this mystery!) We'll reserve a place of honor for the blogger who offers the most compelling analysis.

If it helps make that analysis easier, we've shaded the original EU-15 nations in light purple, while the twelve additional nations that have joined the EU in more recent years are shaded in light green.

What's more, we've also identified the nations in the EU with flat income taxes with asterisks (*). Those nations averaged 12.2% year over year growth in their GDP-PPP per capita.

And that's where we'll leave the rest to you! We'll look forward to what you come up with!

Previously on Political Calculations

2006 Economic and Population Data

2004 Economic and Population Data

2002 Economic and Population Data

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