Yeah, take something proportional to how big (population) AND rich a country is. Divide this by a metric that grows with how rich a country is. This way poorer but bigger countries score better. But that doesn&#x27;t tell much.

Whatever PPP-adjusted total GDP might indicate, I think the main idea is to create a graphic where China is ahead of the USA economically.

I liked a russian hacker&#x27;s story of building an IR camera by repurposing an old scanner: at one point he tries to source a detector from China but is unable to order it because of (he says) US export rules; then he remembers he&#x27;s from a country that builds its own air-to-air missiles, and finds a Russian supplier who sends him the part...

Yep, maybe GDP is not a great measure if one country can produce a box of cookies for $1 while another $4. Turns out physical output is important (bushels of wheat, pounds of steel, # of cars, etc).

One area it can come up is the country&#x27;s ability to self-supply things.To take a example that is currently of interest, Russia&#x27;s ability to manufacture weapons is far greater than that if a country with the same nominal GDP but is closer to its PPP GDP (plus the effects of being more self sufficient than most countries other than the big two).

&gt; Measuring GDP adjusted by purchasing power parity, but not per capita, seems like an odd metric.I agree. As I commented recently here, we should also normalize by total hours worked. People in the US work much more than in many other countries.I guess one use of total GDP adj. b. PPP would be when countries negotiate something. Then, China would have a strong argument for setting terms.

&quot;Heft&quot; is how much weight a country can throw around to affect other countries. Stuff like fighter jets &amp; aircraft carriers, aid deals, trade deals, purchasing assets in other countries, et cetera. Most of that is in trade currency, so no PPP adjustment. Building fighter jets is cheaper in low-PPP countries, but only partially. So, no I don&#x27;t think you should PPP adjust if you want to measure heft.

Wait but the dollar has a higher exchange rate than Chinese currency as well.

&gt; Measuring GDP adjusted by purchasing power parity, but not per capita, seems like an odd metric.Depends on what you want to compare.If you want to understand the &quot;heft&quot; of the country in terms of the sheer size of the economy (adjusted for exchange rates) then you do country GDP on PPP basis.If you want to understand the size taking into account currency rates then you do plain GDP.If you want to understand how well off a citizen is THEN you do per-capita GDP.When countries play on the world stage for influence, their overall heft i.e. total GDP (whether on a PPP basis or not) is essentially the main determinant.

PPP-adjusted total GDP indicates ability or capacity to work on commodity-industries industries, like construction, or furniture, where establishing new industries doesn&#x27;t need as much new research.

PPP-adjusted GDP is an indicator of the level of goods&#x2F;services affordable by all citizens together.The treemap shows how global total purchasing power is divided between countries.A treemap of GDP PPP per capita would show the breakdown of purchasing power if you put one citizen of each country in a single room. I think a bar chart would be a better choice in that case.

If you plot the US&#x27; nominal GDP over time in terms of USD, it looks pretty smooth, while other countries bounce around a lot more.[0] That&#x27;s because other countries&#x27; USD nominal GDPs are affected by exchange-rate fluctuations.If you plot in terms of PPP GDP, other counties suddenly appear much smoother.[1]0. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;data.worldbank.org&#x2F;indicator&#x2F;NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=US-EU&amp;start=2000" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;data.worldbank.org&#x2F;indicator&#x2F;NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?location...</a>1. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;data.worldbank.org&#x2F;indicator&#x2F;NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.CD?locations=US-EU&amp;start=2000" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;data.worldbank.org&#x2F;indicator&#x2F;NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.CD?locat...</a>

Most activity of a country is consumed internally. Nominal GDP is (short-term at least) dominated by currency fluctuations.

In Big Macs, refrigerators, automobiles and dish detergent.

Is it roughly the size of the internal market, in big macs?

It&#x27;s not odd if you have an urge to find any GDP metric where China is ahead of the US.

Measuring GDP adjusted by purchasing power parity, but not per capita, seems like an odd metric.PPP-adjusted GDP per-capita gives an indication of the level of goods&#x2F;services affordable by an individual citizen. Total GDP, unadjusted, is an indicator of a country&#x27;s economic power. What does PPP-adjusted total GDP indicate?

It can also reflect the dynamical nature of the economy in commodities-related industries. A country with higher total purchasing power has higher ability to start and finish projects in low-tech industries like home construction, furniture manufacture and so on.

Purchasing power only makes sense on a per-capita level; it measures on average what you can by with the sorts of money you can carry. The price will not be the same if the entire country&#x27;s GDP tried to buy the same goods.

It&#x27;d be interesting to colour this map, not by continent, but by {Disputed Territories, Eastasia, Eurasia, Oceania} alignment.Assuming India as a Commonwealth country counts in Oceania, that leaves Indonesia as the largest &quot;Disputed Territories&quot; member on this graph...

the economy wealth level should be about disposable income PPP after accounting for shelter, food and other basic necessities

China is still far behind the US on a per-capita basis, but China has a lot of people, so the overall size of the economy is similar (larger in PPP terms, smaller in nominal terms).I don&#x27;t think anyone here believes China is ahead in terms of average standard of living. This graphic is just about the overall size of the economy.

The average person in 成都 lives better than the average person in NYC.

I&#x27;m from china. I don&#x27;t think our country has already exceed USA in economics.Acturally most chinese believe we fall behind USA and Europe coutries far way.

Maybe more useful if hierarchical relationships exist but I just love treemaps in general. I love the way they can make the most of that given screen space. A bar chart would not be able to fit in that screen area because there has to be empty space in a bar chart.

Still good for proportionality. Would’ve been even cooler though with folders for EU, NATO, and other groups that I’m ignorant of. Spacesniffer-style.

Aren&#x27;t treemaps most useful when there&#x27;s a hierarchical relationship. What&#x27;s the structure here? Feels like a bar chart would have been better.

Nominal GDP is a good indicator of quality of consumption whereas GDP PPP is a better indicator for potential of production. If the US worker is used to a home with a lawn, he will still be undercut by a Chinese worker who lives in a 25-storey apartment.In case of adverse currency move, EU, Russia and China may still produce as much stuff (taken together they produce all of the components, whose effective price unchanged), but their US competitors are all undercut on price. They&#x27;ll consume a bit less for the duration, though.

Well yes.It all depends on how it&#x27;s produced in China and also what&#x27;s the marketing and the price positioning. It probably can get away with higher price by positioning itself as an exotic brand.You could ask the same for North Korea, is a Big Mac really the same product over there than in Alabama ?

One Big Mac in China is nothing like one Big Mac in the US?

imo PPP is misleading. 1 public toilet in the US is nothing like 1 public toilet elsewhere. 1 housing unit in the US is nothing like 1 housing unit in China. Nominal GDPs in USD fluctuate in value because they are real. Countries in EU, Russia or China are suddenly relatively less wealthy after adverse currency move.

For the technically inclined, I did this treemap with the open source D3.js (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;d3js.org&#x2F;d3-hierarchy&#x2F;treemap" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;d3js.org&#x2F;d3-hierarchy&#x2F;treemap</a>) JavaScript library. Great library btw!

Total production &#x2F; activity of the world - yes it makes sense. Just as it often makes sense to look at real gdp growth (growth adjusted for inflation) rather than nominal gdp growth.

Does sum of all GDP&#x2F;PPP (represented as a big rectangle) even make any sense?

Poland&#x27;s progress is impressive. We&#x27;ll soon be seeing British plumbers in Krakow.

Yes, more like regions, I stuck to the definition of the World Factbook, where I got my data from. Green for example is Africa, blue Europe, red Asia, but there is also &quot;Middle East&quot;, &quot;North America&quot;, &quot;South America&quot; and &quot;Southeast Asia&quot;, &quot;Oceania&quot;.

The colors are something like continents&#x2F;regions?

First time I heard about PPP:
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Purchasing_power_parity" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Purchasing_power_parity</a>I wonder how they come up with a common ground between Kuwait and Mexico, it feels incredibly easy to manipulate from the source.

I guess this is the way dictators see things.

Apologies: germany and Japan pulling above their weights

Japan has a population of 123mm, 1.5x that of Germany next to it. It’s not a small country.

Based on my personal experience with delayed replies to Indian business letters, the inflation from hyper polite to enraged in one exchange is going to be hilarious if it gets out more widely.

If significantly more of India starts using english, maybe en-in will eventually do to en-us what en-us did to en-gb?

If India gets its shit together it&#x27;ll push the USA into 3rd place. Japan punching way above its weight.

Treemap of World GDP by Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) 2020