<HTML><HTML>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. The composition of the remaining share hasn't changed all that dramatically. The "middle income" countries - those with per capita incomes like Mexico or Brazil - were around 18% of world GDP in the 1970s, and are 16% today. The low-income countries were 5% of world GDP in the late 1960s, and are 3-4% today. The "developing" countries of East Asia and the Pacific (basically Asia excluding Japan) were 6% in 1960, and are around 6% today. Latin America, 6% vs. 5%. The whole of the OECD was 74%, and is now 78%. OECD ex-US, 35% then, 46% now. Lots of that increase came from Japan, which was 3% in 1960 and was 12% in 2002 (which is down from 18% in the mid-90s). The OECD less US & Japan was 32% in 1960, and 33% in 2002. So, most of the U.S. decline happened quite a while ago, and the rest of the picture hasn't changed all that much. By the way, I'm using the World Bank's version of market exchange rates (which averages several years rates to smooth out short-term volatility) for this measure rather than PPP because I think PPP is an appropriate technique for measuring domestic living standards and market rates more appropriate for measuring countries' relative economic weights in the world. Doug ------------------------------ The above is helpful. A closely related follow-up question: Do you have the stats concerning US consumption as a percentage of world consumption for roughly the same period?</HTML>