World economy
This article's factual accuracy is disputed. (May 2025) |
The world economy or global economy is the economy of all humans in the world, referring to the global economic system, which includes all economic activities conducted both within and between nations, including production, consumption, economic management, work in general, financial transactions and trade of goods and services. In some contexts, the two terms are distinct: the "international" or "global economy" is measured separately and distinguished from national economies, while the "world economy" is simply an aggregate of the separate countries' measurements. Beyond the minimum standard concerning value in production, use and exchange, the definitions, representations, models and valuations of the world economy vary widely. It is inseparable from the geography and ecology of planet Earth.
It is common to limit questions of the world economy exclusively to human economic activity, and the world economy is typically judged in monetary terms, even in cases in which there is no efficient market to help valuate certain goods or services, or in cases in which a lack of independent research, genuine data or government cooperation makes calculating figures difficult. Typical examples are illegal drugs and other black market goods, which by any standard are a part of the world economy, but for which there is, by definition, no legal market of any kind.
However, even in cases in which there is a clear and efficient market to establish monetary value, economists do not typically use the current or official exchange rate to translate the monetary units of this market into a single unit for the world economy since exchange rates typically do not closely reflect worldwide value – for example, in cases where the volume or price of transactions is closely regulated by the government.
Rather, market valuations in a local currency are typically translated to a single monetary unit using the idea of purchasing power. This is the method used below, which is used for estimating worldwide economic activity in terms of real United States dollars or euros. However, the world economy can be evaluated and expressed in many more ways. It is unclear, for example, how many of the world's 7.8 billion people (as of March 2020[update]) have most of their economic activity reflected in these valuations.
Until the middle of the 19th century, global output was dominated by China and India. Waves of the Industrial Revolution in Western Europe and Northern America shifted the shares to the Western Hemisphere. As of 2025, the following 21 countries or collectives have reached an economy of at least US$2 trillion by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in nominal or Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) terms: Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Poland, South Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, the European Union and the African Union.
Between 1820 and 2000, global income inequality increased with almost 50%. However, this change occurred mostly before 1950. Afterwards, the level of inequality remained mostly stable. It is important to differentiate between between-country inequality, which was the driving force for this pattern, and within country inequality, which remained largely constant. Global income inequality peaked approximately in the 1970s, when world income was distributed bimodally into "rich" and "poor" countries with little overlap. Since then, inequality has been rapidly decreasing, and this trend seems to be accelerating. Income distribution is now unimodal, with most people living in middle-income countries.
In the 2000s, a study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research at United Nations University found that the richest 1% of adults owned 40% of global assets, and that the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total. The bottom half of the world adult population owned barely 1% of global wealth. Oxfam International reported that the richest 1 percent of people owned 48 percent of global wealth As of 2013[update], and would own more than half of global wealth by 2016. In 2014, Oxfam reported that the 85 wealthiest individuals in the world had a combined wealth equal to that of the bottom half of the world's population, or about 3.5 billion people.
Despite high levels of government investment, the global economy decreased by 3.4% in 2020 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, an improvement from the World Bank's initial prediction of a 5.2 percent decrease. Cities account for 80% of global GDP, thus they faced the brunt of this decline. The world economy increased again in 2021 with an estimated 5.5 percent rebound.
Overview
World economy by country groups
| Country group | List of country groups by GDP (nominal) in 2025 (or at peaked level) | List of country groups by GDP (PPP) in 2025 (or at peaked level) | Number of countries | Major economies | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Value (in millions of US$) | Share of Global GDP | Value (in millions of US$) | Share of Global GDP | |||
| Emerging and developing Asia (Continents: Asia and Oceania) | 27,671,608 | 24.3% | 73,068,383 | 35.3% | 30 |  China India Indonesia Thailand Vietnam Bangladesh Philippines Malaysia |
| Major advanced economies (G7) (Continents: Europe, North America and Asia) | 51,137,118 | 44.9% | 58,810,255 | 28.4% | 7 |  United States Japan Germany France United Kingdom Italy Canada |
| Other advanced economies (advanced economies excluding the G7) (Continents: Europe, Asia, Oceania and North America) | 15,731,137 | 13.8% | 22,625,308 | 10.9% | 34 |  South Korea Spain Australia Taiwan Netherlands Singapore Switzerland Belgium Sweden Ireland |
| Emerging and developing Europe (Continents: Europe and Asia) | 5,735,449 | 5.1% | 16,029,959 | 7.8% | 15 |  Russia Turkey Poland Romania Ukraine |
| Middle East and Central Asia (Continents: Asia and Africa) | 4,935,906 | 4.3% | 14,846,285 | 7.2% | 32 |  Saudi Arabia Egypt Iran Pakistan United Arab Emirates Kazakhstan Algeria |
| Latin America and the Caribbean (Continents: South America and North America) | 6,683,858 (peaked at 6,760,531 in 2024) | 5.9% | 14,818,811 | 7.2% | 33 |  Brazil Mexico Argentina Colombia |
| Sub-Saharan Africa (Continent: Africa) | 1,900,602 (peaked at 2,037,042 in 2022) | 1.7% | 6,679,220 | 3.2% | 45 |  Nigeria South Africa |
| World | 113,795,678 | 100.0% | 206,878,221 | 100.0% | 196 | |
World economy by continent
| GDP sector composition (2019 estimate) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Current world economic league table of largest economies in the world by GDP and share of global economic growth
| The 30 largest economies by GDP (nominal), GDP (PPP), the highest peak GDP per capita (nominal) and the highest peak GDP per capita (PPP) as of 2025. Members of the G-20 major economies are in bold. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| List of the 30 largest economies by GDP (nominal) at their peak level as of 2025 in million US$ | List of the 30 largest economies by GDP (PPP) at their peak level as of 2025 in million Int$ | List of the 30 economies by highest GDP (nominal) per capita at their peak level as of 2025 in US$ | List of the 30 economies by highest GDP (PPP) per capita at their peak level as of 2025 in Int$ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Twenty largest economies in the world by nominal GDP
| The following is a list of the twenty largest economies by nominal GDP at peak value as of the specific year, according to the International Monetary Fund. | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | 1980 | 1985 | 1990 | 1995 | 2000 | 2005 | 2010 | 2015 | 2020 | 2025 | 2030 |
| 1 | United States | United States | United States | United States | United States | United States | United States | United States | United States | United States | United States |
| 2 | Japan |  Soviet Union | Japan | Japan | Japan | Japan | China | China | China | China | China |
| 3 | Soviet Union | Japan | Soviet Union | Germany | Germany | Germany | Japan | Japan | Japan | Japan | India |
| 4 | West Germany | West Germany | West Germany | France | United Kingdom | United Kingdom | Germany | Germany | Germany | Germany | Japan |
| 5 | France | France | France | United Kingdom | France | China | United Kingdom | United Kingdom | United Kingdom | India | Germany |
| 6 | United Kingdom | United Kingdom | United Kingdom | Italy | Italy | France | France | France | France | United Kingdom | United Kingdom |
| 7 | Italy | Italy | Italy | Brazil | China | Italy | Italy | Brazil | India | France | France |
| 8 | China | Canada | Canada | China | Brazil | Canada | Brazil | Italy | Brazil | Brazil | Canada |
| 9 | Canada | China | Iran | Spain | Canada | Spain | Russia | Russia | Italy | Italy | Italy |
| 10 | Mexico | Mexico | Spain | Canada | Mexico | South Korea | India | India | Russia | Russia | Brazil |
| Rank | 1980 | 1985 | 1990 | 1995 | 2000 | 2005 | 2010 | 2015 | 2020 | 2025 | 2030 |
| 11 | Argentina | Argentina | China | South Korea | Spain | Mexico | Spain | Canada | Canada | Canada | Russia |
| 12 | Spain | India | Brazil | Iran | South Korea | Brazil | Canada | Spain | South Korea | South Korea | Spain |
| 13 | Netherlands | Spain | Australia | Russia | Iran | India | Australia | Australia | Spain | Mexico | Australia |
| 14 | India | Brazil | Netherlands | Mexico | Russia | Russia | South Korea | South Korea | Australia | Spain | Mexico |
| 15 | Saudi Arabia | Australia | India | Netherlands | India | Australia | Mexico | Mexico | Mexico | Australia | South Korea |
| 16 | Australia | Netherlands | Mexico | Australia | Netherlands | Netherlands | Netherlands | Turkey | Indonesia | Turkey | Indonesia |
| 17 | Brazil | Saudi Arabia | South Korea | India | Australia | Iran | Turkey | Netherlands | Turkey | Indonesia | Turkey |
| 18 | Sweden | Iran | Switzerland | Switzerland | Switzerland | Turkey | Indonesia | Indonesia | Netherlands | Netherlands | Netherlands |
| 19 | Belgium | Nigeria | Sweden | Argentina | Argentina | Switzerland | Switzerland | Saudi Arabia | Saudi Arabia | Saudi Arabia | Saudi Arabia |
| 20 | Switzerland | Sweden | Argentina | Belgium | Taiwan | Sweden | Iran | Switzerland | Switzerland | Poland | Poland |
Twenty largest economies in the world by GDP (PPP)
| List of twenty largest economies by GDP based on purchasing power parity at peak value as of the specific year according to the International Monetary Fund and the CIA World Factbook. | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | 1980 | 1985 | 1990 | 1995 | 2000 | 2005 | 2010 | 2015 | 2020 | 2025 | 2030 |
| 1 | United States | United States | United States | United States | United States | United States | United States | United States | China | China | China |
| 2 | Soviet Union | Soviet Union | Soviet Union | Japan | China | China | China | China | United States | United States | United States |
| 3 | Japan | Japan | Japan | China | Japan | Japan | India | India | India | India | India |
| 4 | West Germany | West Germany | West Germany | Germany | Germany | India | Japan | Japan | Japan | Russia | Russia |
| 5 | Italy | Italy | Italy | Russia | India | Germany | Germany | Germany | Germany | Japan | Japan |
| 6 | France | France | France | India | Italy | Russia | Russia | Russia | Russia | Germany | Germany |
| 7 | United Kingdom | United Kingdom | China | Italy | France | France | Brazil | Brazil | France | Indonesia | Indonesia |
| 8 | Brazil | Brazil | United Kingdom | France | United Kingdom | Italy | France | United Kingdom | Brazil | Brazil | Brazil |
| 9 | Mexico | Mexico | India | Brazil | Russia | United Kingdom | United Kingdom | France | United Kingdom | France | United Kingdom |
| 10 | India | India | Brazil | United Kingdom | Brazil | Brazil | Italy | Indonesia | Indonesia | United Kingdom | France |
| Rank | 1980 | 1985 | 1990 | 1995 | 2000 | 2005 | 2010 | 2015 | 2020 | 2025 | 2030 |
| 11 | Spain | China | Mexico | Mexico | Mexico | Mexico | Indonesia | Italy | Italy | Turkey | Turkey |
| 12 | Saudi Arabia | Spain | Spain | Indonesia | Indonesia | ||||||
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