> According to World Bank stats, the U.S. was 39% of world GDP in 1960.
> That fell to 25% in 1980, and then rose to about 32% in 2002. (I'm a
> little behind on updating this spreadsheet.) Some of this is exchange
> rate effects, but in any case, the bulk of the decline happened by
> 1980.
Most of that is exchange rate fluctuation. The dollar was unduly low in 1980, then went unduly high in the early 1980s, before returning to Earth after 1987. The late 1990s strong dollar similarly skews the data from 2002.
At 2003 exchange rates, both the enlarged EU and the US have GDP shares of around 30% of the world total, while the East Asian core economies plus semipheriphery (Japan plus China, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore) are about 23%.
-- DRR