The Empire too, can we depend on you?
Interesting review of three new books on Empire in this week's LRB (subscribers only).It got me thinking how the UK's economic output compared with those of the Empire. In 2006 taking all the countries that were in the Empire (including Canada, Australia etc) in 1925 (with some exceptions for which I could not find data, but the error caused will be relatively small), I get this* - the UK is almost exactly 50% of the size of the rest of the Empire, and so 1/3rd of the total, which accounts for 15% of world GDP, about 2/3 of the rest of the EU15 and 3/5 of the US].
UK GDP = $2,661bn
Rest of British Empire = $5,323bn
Rest of World = $45,827bn
[Nb: US = $13,742bn, EU13 = $11,487bn, Japan = $4,302, China = $3,088bn]
If you make the Dominions a separate category, you get UK = $2,661bn, Dominions $2,724, Rest, $2,598bn, i.e., three with almost exactly equal economic output.
In terms of size, the top 10 are:
UK 2,661
Canada 1,266
India** 1,197
Australia 822
South Africa 272
Ireland 250
Hong Kong 202
UAE 186
Egypt 129
Nigeria 127
* All figures using current dollar exchange rates at market values, at PPP the UK would lose some ground mainly to India.
** Pre-1947 borders.
posted by Matthew @ 7/26/2007 01:00:00 PM
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