Compare your State’s Economy Against the Rest of the World

The US economy is so big, that the economies of all 50 states are comparable in size to those of entire countries. To illustrate this, howmuch.net used national GDP data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and state data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) to put together a map that displays a country of comparable size (in terms of GDP) for each US state. All of the countries shown have 2014 GDPs that are roughly equivalent (+/- 10%) to the GDP of the state on which it is shown.

See the methodology and more info at HowMuch.net

The Happy Planet Index : 2012 Report

Source: New Economics Foundation (UK)

The Happy Planet Index (HPI) measures what matters. It tells us how well nations are doing in terms of supporting their inhabitants to live good lives now, while ensuring that others can do the same in the future, i.e. sustainable well-being for all.

The third global HPI report reveals that this is largely still an unhappy planet – with both high- and low-income countries facing many challenges on their way to meeting this same overall goal. But it also demonstrates that good lives do not have to cost the Earth – that the countries where well-being is highest are not always the ones that have the biggest environmental impact.

The HPI is one of the first global measures of sustainable well-being. It uses global data on experienced well-being, life expectancy, and Ecological Footprint to generate an index revealing which countries are most efficient at producing long, happy lives for their inhabitants, whilst maintaining the conditions for future generations to do the same....

At heart, the HPI is a measure of efficiency. It calculates the number of Happy Life Years (life expectancy adjusted for experienced well-being) achieved per unit of resource use.

This year’s results:

Confirm that we are still not living on a happy planet, with no country achieving high and sustainable well-being and only nine close to doing so.

Highlight that eight of those nine countries are in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Show the highest ranking Western European nation to be Norway in 29th place,just behind New Zealand in 28th place.

Place the USA in 105th position out of 151 countries.

Demonstrate how the scores of high-income countries are brought down considerably by their large Ecological Footprints.

Which countries match GDP and population of America's states?

IT HAS long been true that California on its own would rank as one of the biggest economies of the world. These days, it would rank eighth, falling between Italy and Brazil on a nominal exchange-rate basis. But how do other American states compare with other countries, in terms of GDP (above) and population?

Public Debt

This entry, from the CIA Factbook, records the cumulative total of all government borrowings less repayments that are denominated in a country's home currency. Public debt should not be confused with external debt, which reflects the foreign currency liabilities of both the private and public sector and must be financed out of foreign exchange earnings.

The list is of 131 countries. The number to the right of the country is % of GDP.

1 Zimbabwe 241.60 2010 est.

2 Japan 196.40 2010 est.

3 Saint Kitts and Nevis 185.00 2009 est.

4 Lebanon 150.70 2010 est.

5 Greece 144.00 2010 est.

6 Iceland 123.80 2010 est.

7 Jamaica 123.20 2010 est.

8 Italy 118.10 2010 est.

9 Belgium 102.50 2010 est.

10 Singapore 102.40 2010 est.

36 United States 58.90 2010 est.

112 China 17.50 2010 est.

122 Qatar 10.30 2010 est.

123 Russia 9.50 2010 est.

124 Uzbekistan 9.00 2010 est.

125 Estonia 7.70 2010 est.

126 Chile 6.20 2010 est.

127 Wallis and Futuna 5.60 2004 est.

128 Azerbaijan 4.60 2010 est.

129 Oman 4.40 2010 est.

130 Equatorial Guinea 4.10 2010 est.

131 Libya 3.30 2010 est.

Country Background Notes

These publications from the US State Department include facts about the land, people, history, government, political conditions, economy, and foreign relations of independent states, some dependencies, and areas of special sovereignty. The Background Notes are updated/revised by the Office of Electronic Information and Publications of the Bureau of Public Affairs as they are received from the Department's regional bureaus.

Country Insights

Country Insights is a source for statistical data, historical, economic, and political conditions for 199 countries around the world, including the United States.

UN Data

The Hill Library Business Web Site of the Week:

A restaurant in the Twin Cities has a billboard campaign claiming that their international kitchen is like the UN, but productive. Zing. Clearly, however, this restaurant has not seen data.un.org.

This tool, hosted by the United Nations, collects in-depth statistics on countries, commodities, products, and people. Using the site, one can get historical, current, and - often - projected statistics on such varying topics as the amount of chewing gum imported to the Philippines, the literacy rate in Saudi Arabia, population growth in Panama, or the number of divorces in Croatia.

Search the site by country name, demographic keyword, or product type - or browse the individual databases to get a feel for the breadth of information available. At least statistic-gathering-wise, the UN is totally productive.