What are the two leading countries in todays economy?

Question

I need to determine the criteria or standards I used to figure them out. Provide 4 factors to support my selection of why they are in the leading position. were they in the same position 200 yrs. ago, 100 yrs. ago, 50 yrs ago. What accounts for the consistency or change of economic status through 2 cities

Answer 1

Looking at resources, labor, and influence around the world I would have to say the U.S. and China.  

Answer 2

The two leading countries? The first is obviously the United States. It's the behemoth that influences the rest of the world. The second would either be the EU (because of its size and influence) or China (because of its rate of growth). The rest of your question is sort of incoherent.

Answer 3

Generally I would not consider the European Union as a country unless you modify your definition somewhat. Instead of country you can refer to an economic unit. Some people would consider the European Monetary Union (EMU) an economic unit. The EMU is the countries in  the EU that have switched to the euro.

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You should know something about "purchasing power parity" (PPP) which attempts to measure economies not by exchange rate, but relative to what can be purchased by the money in their country. This is the most common measure. Although other methods such as the "Atlas Method" are used by the world bank.

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By PPP the US and China have the world's largest economies. Although the PPP per person in China is much lower than the developed world, their population is so large that it means the overall PPP is very high.

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200 years ago the first two countries were probably China and the United Kingdom. China, because of it's huge population, and the United Kingdom since it was the only country who had really undergone the "industrial revolution". In addition, the UK had a huge colonial empire. At 200 years ago the United States was still a fairly small rural nation. The formation of New York as a world city was in its infancy. London was the largest city in the world at that time.

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100 years ago it was probably US and Germany. They had the largest populations in the developed world, had been in their respective industrial revolutions for 20 or 30 years. China was languishing in the final years of their empire.

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50 years ago it was probably US and USSR. USSR had  a much larger population than any country in Europe or Japan and was twelve years into it's post WWII economic recovery. Although Europe was recovering, I would think that the considerably larger population in USSR would give them the edge.

Answer 4

Wrong Paco, during the early 1800s Napoleon's French Empire encompassed the majority of europe. And during the early 1900s Britain was still world power with their huge advances in technology during the industrial revolution but yeah U.S. was almost equal by then and surpassed it very soon after.

200 yrs ago: France

100 years: Britain (U.S. very close in 2nd place)

50 year ago: U.S. (Soviet Union in 2nd place)

Now: U.S. (Japan is still 2nd but losing ground fast, China and Germany is tied for 3rd, but Germany is also losing ground fast).

I'm going by cultural influence and nominal GDP.

Germany would be fairly high on the list if there was a ~25 or ~75 category they did a zigzag up and down in the 19th century.