Largest state economies

[Bruce]

The Dept. of Commerce has release its new state gross product statistics, which shows a new top 10 entry: Washington.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2019/05/02/fast-growing-washington-state-knocks-massachusetts-out-top-largest-state-economies/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.0c11946f4ac0

[thspfc]

If Texas was its own country, it would have the 12th largest economy in the world. !

[Rothman]

And California?

[bing101]

And California?

I know that California was mentioned to be the 5th-8th largest economy of the world for the past 4 decades.

[Chris]

Colorado made some remarkable gains as well, while Louisiana and Michigan have dropped significantly.

It would be interesting to know the per capita ranking.

Washington seems to attract both population and highly productive industries, that has propelled them upward so much over the last few years. They passed 4 states in just a few years, that's not due to population growth alone. North Carolina has a substantially larger population than Washington.

[webny99]

It would be interesting to know the per capita ranking.

See the bottom of the article -- it gives some of the state figures, in addition to a graph for each state showing how its per capita ranking has changed over time.

[kevinb1994]

Even Georgia made an impressive leap towards the top of the list. Can't say that's surprising though, as we all know where the 1996 Summer Olympics were held for the 100th anniversary of the Modern Olympic Games. However, it looks like they're about to drop below Washington State.

On the other hand, it seems like Florida has stagnated in growth twice since "˜85. This is likely due to the freezing temperatures that occurred in the successive winters of "˜85—"˜86, in particular by the January "˜85 cold wave, the worst since 1899. This drove the crops out of the Greater Orlando area and into other areas of the state, mostly to South Florida, where they remain today. There was also the recession of the late-80s and early 90s, in addition to the recession of the late-90s and early-00s, though the chart shows a slight uptick in growth in 2000. Things went stagnant again thanks to the most recent Great Recession, which was also the time of the recent housing crisis.

[triplemultiplex]

The graph is just ranking; it says nothing about actual growth of an economy.  A state could 'drop' in the list despite having steady gains if some other state grew faster.  Not very telling.

Also, it's basically just a population graph.  Not exactly, but pretty close.
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_population

[bing101]

https://www.voanews.com/a/which-us-states-get-more-than-they-give/4809228.html


https://www.voanews.com/a/how-us-states-are-richer-than-some-foreign-nations/4844942.html

Here are some follow up articles on large state economies


https://www.voanews.com/a/more-americans-are-moving-west-and-south/4937438.html

[Duke87]

I have to wonder about the accounting behind this sort of thing.

For example, we know Amazon and Microsoft are both HQ'd in Washington. Is it being counted as a "net export" from the state for the purposes of GDP calculation every time someone out of state buys a copy of Windows? Is the value of that export derated to account for the fact that some Windows development work surely happens in other states?
Likewise, is it a "net export" every time someone pays for Amazon Web Services? Even if the servers hosting the services they're purchasing are located elsewhere?


The other major known issue with the numbers here is that they're based on raw dollars, not on purchasing power parity. I bet for example that if you looked at purchasing power parity Texas would have passed New York a lot sooner and the current gap between the two would be a lot wider.
Texas might even beat California out at purchasing power per capita.

[Hurricane Rex]

And California?

I know that California was mentioned to be the 5th-8th largest economy of the world for the past 4 decades.

I've heard 4th largest before as well.

SM-J737T

[webny99]

For California, fourth is a stretch. It is anywhere from fifth to eighth depending on how you count and what year you look at.

It definitely ranks behind the US (really!), China, Japan, and Germany. It is one of the next four along with the UK, India, and France, often considered the largest of those four but nowhere near surpassing Germany.

Texas and New York also rank in the top 15: 11th and 13th, respectively, with Canada sandwiched in between at #12.