Monday, November 05, 2007

EU vs. USA Smackdown: EU Still Below Mississippi

We've been having a lively discussion on Sweden and the EU, vs. the USA for standard of living, per capita income, etc., based on this post, this post and this post.

Thanks to Ironman at Political Calculations blog, there is now an updated, dynamic, sortable database at this link based on 2006 data.

If you click on the last column and sort from highest to lowest, you'll see that:

1. Based on 2006 data, if the EU countries as a group became the 51st U.S. state, it would be the poorest state in America, with only $27,394 in per capita GDP (PPP adjusted), below even Mississippi (GSP of $28,937).

2. If Sweden, Netherlands, UK, Germany and France were added individually as the 51st U.S. state, they would all rank #49 in per-capita GDP/GSP, ahead of only West Virginia and Mississippi.

3. In other words, updated data show that the results in 2006 are almost exactly the same of the previous posts based on 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005 data.

6 Comments:

At 11/05/2007 5:12 PM, Blogger Ironman said...

Thanks for the link, Mark!

I don't know if you're already familiar with this (via the comments at Daniel Drezner's blog), but did you know that Americans not only earn more than the Swedes, they work less too? (see #3)

And that's true for Germany too!

 
At 11/05/2007 10:47 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The proper comparison for Sweden is Minnesota. There are more Swedes there than in Sweden. They are the same commie socialists.

 
At 11/06/2007 11:30 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

What about Canada. Do you have the numbers at your fingertips?

 
At 11/06/2007 6:43 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Are these constant dollars?
buck

 
At 11/07/2007 4:09 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Given a choice between living in Mississippi or Sweden, Germany or France or the UK where would you live?

 
At 11/08/2007 11:23 PM, Blogger Ironman said...

anonymous:

For Canada relative to the U.S. (and other nations in the Americas) see this post.

buck:

Constant dollars would only be used for multi-year periods of time - since all the data is for the same year, the only adjustment is for Purchasing Price Parity, which helps account for currency exchange rates and other market differences.

anonymous:

If we're limiting the choice to your list, Mississippi, which has lower taxes, better growth prospects, fewer race riots and better dentists and health care, respectively.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home