European economy - Économie européenne - Europäische Wirtschaft

[mousquet]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

^^There are no data for the Lille metro area, as I explained a few posts above.

My bad. I had seen earlier and forgot because you brought the Benelux. Thank you again for that painful map of Belgium... Um, I'm eventually wondering whether our own government shouldn't try something cool for Wallonia, like some incentive of some kind to set up businesses over there somehow. Of course this is not our country, huh, but... I just like Brussels to speak French. I mean we've got a Canadian-like mess just 200km north of Paris right there, and it's even worse than Canada. That sucks.

[New Brisavoine]

More GDP per capita divides.

[mousquet]

Ok. Not entitled to comment on what our neighbors do after all, but what causes such an outrageous gap in France has been well known for ages. Something called jacobinisme/centralisme that a whole bunch of officials feeling dependent on the system as it's been for so long won't change anyhow. And that's not the fault of people from metro Paris in particular, huh. Just saying for foreigners or even some of us French who'd blame on people from Île-de-France. That'd be unfair too. Obviously, entire France is responsible for the French governance system and that shameful, painful gap it brought about.

[New Brisavoine]

+ the Scandinavian metro areas.

GDP per capita in 2011 (in US dollars, at market exchange rates, not at purchasing power parity):
- Oslo metro area: between $84,000 and $94,000 (depending on the definition of the metro area)
- Stockholm County: $78,301
- Munich metro area: 71,460
- Paris Region: 71,307
- Copenhagen metro area: $70,128
- Helsinki-Uusimaa Region: $64,385
- Brussels-Capital + Flemish & Walloon Brabant: 64,322
- Rhine-Main metro area (Frankfurt-Wiesbaden-Mainz): 60,332
- Antwerp arrondissement: 58,318
- Stuttgart metro area: 57,832
- Hamburg metro area: 57,036
- Greater London + 6 home counties: 54,802
- Randstad (Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, Utrecht): 52,537
- Milan metro area: 52,105
- Lyon metro area: 50,738
THE NETHERLANDS (entire country): 49,968
- Rhine-Ruhr metro area (Essen-Düsseldorf-Cologne): 47,914
- Edinburgh metro area: 47,913
- Nice-Monaco (Alpes-Maritimes + Principality of Monaco): 47,763 (figure heavily weighed down by the numerous retirees living in the area)
- Toulouse metro area: 46,729
BELGIUM (entire country): 46,539
GERMANY (entire country): 45,293
- Rome metro area: 45,210
- Bristol metro area: 44,793
- Marseille metro area: 44,582
- Bordeaux metro area: 43,251
- Florence metro area: 42,922
FRANCE (entire country): 42,812
- Turin province: 42,192
- Madrid province: 40,940
- Berlin metro area: 39,046
- Bilbao province: 39,039
UK (entire country): 38,964
- Liège arrondissement: 37,892
ITALY (entire country): 37,025
- Barcelona province: 35,861
- Glasgow metro area: 35,278
- West Yorkshire metro area (Leeds-Bradford): 34,463
- Manchester metro area: 34,255
- Newcastle metro area: 33,287
- Birmingham metro area: ca. 32,000
SPAIN (entire country): 31,173
- Liverpool metro area: 29,783
- Valencia province: 28,827
- South Yorkshire metro area (Sheffield-Doncaster): 27,593
- Palermo province: 25,549
- Naples metro area: 22,150

[mousquet]

Do the Swedes have any large amount of oil and natural gas () like Norway does? Nope. They owe their wealth to their brains only. So this goes to Stockholm and not to Oslo:

[mousquet]

I might add that in France, Lyon's doing just as good as anyone could outside Paris in this country that's backward to some respects. If decentralization was eventually taken to a serious level in France, you'd see quite a couple of French metro areas emerge to compete with the capital on the international stage. Lyon would definitely be the most aggressive of them as shown by that only figure of GDP per capita. Their aggressiveness must even be remarkable in that rather anti-business environment, in a country where you've got to be enduring to do business, where people to help you in doing so are too few, and those to nastily deter you from it too many, especially in the public bureaucracy. We'll have to repeat that over and over, till the ugly is defeated.

[New Brisavoine]

+ the metro areas of Porto, Lisbon, Dublin, and Vienna.

Porto is shockingly poor! Dublin has the highest GDP per capita in the British Isles, ahead of London (and also Aberdeen, I've checked, despite the oil there).

GDP per capita in 2011 (in US dollars, at market exchange rates, not at purchasing power parity):
- Oslo metro area: between $84,000 and $94,000 (depending on the definition of the metro area)
- Stockholm County: $78,301
- Munich metro area: 71,460
- Paris Region: 71,307
- Copenhagen metro area: $70,128
- Helsinki-Uusimaa Region: $64,385
- Brussels-Capital + Flemish & Walloon Brabant: 64,322
- Dublin metro area: 62,406
- Rhine-Main metro area (Frankfurt-Wiesbaden-Mainz): 60,332
- Vienna metro area: 58,836
- Antwerp arrondissement: 58,318
- Stuttgart metro area: 57,832
- Hamburg metro area: 57,036
- Greater London + 6 home counties: 54,802
- Randstad (Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, Utrecht): 52,537
- Milan metro area: 52,105
- Lyon metro area: 50,738
THE NETHERLANDS (entire country): 49,968
AUSTRIA (entire country): 49,566
ÉIRE (entire country): 49,344
- Rhine-Ruhr metro area (Essen-Düsseldorf-Cologne): 47,914
- Edinburgh metro area: 47,913
- Nice-Monaco (Alpes-Maritimes + Principality of Monaco): 47,763 (figure heavily weighed down by the numerous retirees living in the area)
- Toulouse metro area: 46,729
BELGIUM (entire country): 46,539
GERMANY (entire country): 45,293
- Rome metro area: 45,210
- Bristol metro area: 44,793
- Marseille metro area: 44,582
- Bordeaux metro area: 43,251
- Florence metro area: 42,922
FRANCE (entire country): 42,812
- Turin province: 42,192
- Madrid province: 40,940
- Berlin metro area: 39,046
- Bilbao province: 39,039
UK (entire country): 38,964
- Liège arrondissement: 37,892
ITALY (entire country): 37,025
- Barcelona province: 35,861
- Glasgow metro area: 35,278
- West Yorkshire metro area (Leeds-Bradford): 34,463
- Manchester metro area: 34,255
- Newcastle metro area: 33,287
- Birmingham metro area: ca. 32,000
- Lisbon metro area: 31,333
SPAIN (entire country): 31,173
- Liverpool metro area: 29,783
- Valencia province: 28,827
- South Yorkshire metro area (Sheffield-Doncaster): 27,593
- Palermo province: 25,549
PORTUGAL (entire country): 22,570
- Naples metro area: 22,150
- Porto metro area: 19,634

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

More GDP per capita divides.

East Germany is as rich as non-Parisian France? Wow.

[Minato Ku]

I was surprised as well by the GDP per capita of East Germany.
While the figure is also helped by the fact that Berlin is a large part of East Germany population and economy, this is still higher than what I through.

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Porto is shockingly poor!

I find Naples worse when compared with the average of Italy.

[mousquet]

I don't find eastern Germany's results surprising. Again, part of the explanation is that overall, France isn't doing as good as one normally informed would expect, which is not only a French embarrassment but also a potential problem to our partners all around, such as Spain and Germany itself whose France is a major customer. And of course, Eastern Europe has been growing since Soviet Union collapsed. That's been for 25 years! So where would be any surprise? Really, the time when we won't laugh at countries like Poland anymore shouldn't be too long from now.

I think the most amazing in there is the Irish case. People over here say it was still like really poor just 30 years ago. I can remember that astonished me indeed the 1st time I heard about that since for example, a cousin of mine spent a couple of years in Dublin in the early 00s. Then when she came back from over there, she was better off and quite satisfied from her Irish experience. They really came a long long way within a pretty short time. Granted, they benefited a lot from the EU subsidies, but so did Spain that's still slower. At the end of the day, the Irish strategy proved remarkably effective, even in the turmoil of the global crisis. It is probably the best case study in there, even though the righteous Scandinavians still rule, but that is really no surprise at all.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Crawford

East Germany is as rich as non-Parisian France? Wow.

Well, East Germany is richer than non-Londonian UK, which is even more shocking.

About provincial France, one needs to remember that it is a considerably larger than East Germany, so you have regions of higher and lesser wealth over such a vast territory, whereas East Germany is smaller and its GDP per capita is more homogenous across the land. So the average for provincial France is a bit meaningless. On the one hand you have provincial metropolitan areas with GDP per capita much higher than East Germany's (they are in the list: Lyon with $50,738, Nice-Monaco with $47,763, Toulouse with $46,729, etc.), and on the other hand there are very rural areas with low GDP per capita (these areas are also often inhabited by lots of old people, particularly retired farmers, who live off the land with small pensions, for example in places like Creuse, Cantal, Gers, etc). East Germany is much less rural (its population density is considerably higher than provincial France), and its inhabitants are mostly city dwellers, so it's hard to compare with very rural and aged areas like Creuse or Cantal.

In general, I would say that Germany tends to be a homogenous country (small rural Bavarian or Wurttemburgian districts are as productive and wealthy as big cities), whereas France is more a country of big contrasts, a bit like the US, with very productive and wealthy large cities, and rather unproductive and less well-off rural areas. Of course the big difference with the US is the huge regional equalization in France. Thanks to redistribution by the French state, you don't really notice the sharp differences on the ground, because money from the big cities is pumped to fund the rural areas. It's not like you're going to see potholes on the roads in Creuse or Cantal, even though their headline GDP per capita is as low as the Italian Mezzogiorno. In fact the roads and public equipments would tend to be in better shape in the rural areas with low GDP per capita, because the French state has always had a tendency to favor disproportionately the rural areas, to the detriment of the big cities which sorely need investment (the northern districts of Marseille or the northern banlieues of Paris come to mind).

[New Brisavoine]

+ the Swiss metro areas. The Swiss statistical office has at long last started publishing regional GDP figures for Switzerland, so we can finally have some figures for the Swiss metro areas, and boy they don't disappoint!

Unfortunately the figures are only available at canton level. In the case of Zurich, it gives a good idea of the GDP per capita of the Zurich metro area (the figure is a little bit inflated by some commuters coming from the Canton of Aarau, where the GDP per capita is $73,751, but not by very much, since most of the Zurich metro area is contained within the Canton of Zurich).

However, in the case of Basel and above all Geneva, the figures are greatly inflated by commuters coming from neighboring areas. In the case of Basel, there are commuters coming from the French department of Haut-Rhin (whose GDP per capita is $35,365) and from the Swiss cantons of Solothurn (whose GDP per capita is $68,098) and Aarau ($73,751). In case of Geneva, there are commuters coming from the French department of Haute-Savoie (whose GDP per capita is $37,010), the French department of Ain (whose GDP per capita is $33,247), and the Swiss canton of Vaud (whose GDP per capita is $75,997).

It is not possible to give more precise figures for Geneva and Basel, because there exist not GDP figures for the French communes and for the Swiss districts (below the canton level).

GDP per capita in 2011 (in US dollars, at market exchange rates, not at purchasing power parity):
- Canton of Geneva: $118,721 (figure inflated by commuters coming from neighboring areas in France and Switzerland)
- Canton of Zurich: $104,733
- cantons of Basel-Stadt & Basel-Land + German district of Lörrach: $93,436 (figure inflated by commuters coming from neighboring areas in Switzerland and France)
- Oslo metro area: between $84,000 and $94,000 (depending on the definition of the metro area)
SWITZERLAND (entire country): $83,679 ($51,352 at PPP)
- Stockholm County: $78,301
- Munich metro area: $71,460
- Paris Region: $71,307
- Copenhagen metro area: $70,128
- Helsinki-Uusimaa Region: $64,385
- Brussels-Capital + Flemish & Walloon Brabant: $64,322
- Dublin metro area: $62,406
- Rhine-Main metro area (Frankfurt-Wiesbaden-Mainz): $60,332
- Vienna metro area: $58,836
- Antwerp arrondissement: $58,318
- Stuttgart metro area: $57,832
- Hamburg metro area: $57,036
- Greater London + 6 home counties: $54,802
- Randstad (Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, Utrecht): $52,537
- Milan metro area: $52,105
- Lyon metro area: $50,738
THE NETHERLANDS (entire country): $49,968
AUSTRIA (entire country): $49,566
ÉIRE (entire country): $49,344
- Rhine-Ruhr metro area (Essen-Düsseldorf-Cologne): $47,914
- Edinburgh metro area: $47,913
- Nice-Monaco (Alpes-Maritimes + Principality of Monaco): $47,763 (figure heavily weighed down by the numerous retirees living in the area)
- Toulouse metro area: $46,729
BELGIUM (entire country): $46,539
GERMANY (entire country): $45,293
- Rome metro area: $45,210
- Bristol metro area: $44,793
- Marseille metro area: $44,582
- Bordeaux metro area: $43,251
- Florence metro area: $42,922
FRANCE (entire country): $42,812
- Turin province: $42,192
- Madrid province: $40,940
- Berlin metro area: $39,046
- Bilbao province: $39,039
UK (entire country): $38,964
- Liège arrondissement: $37,892
ITALY (entire country): $37,025
- Barcelona province: $35,861
- Glasgow metro area: $35,278
- West Yorkshire metro area (Leeds-Bradford): $34,463
- Manchester metro area: $34,255
- Newcastle metro area: $33,287
- Birmingham metro area: ca. $32,000
- Lisbon metro area: $31,333
SPAIN (entire country): $31,173
- Liverpool metro area: $29,783
- Valencia province: $28,827
- South Yorkshire metro area (Sheffield-Doncaster): $27,593
- Palermo province: $25,549
PORTUGAL (entire country): $22,570
- Naples metro area: $22,150
- Porto metro area: $19,634

[Miu]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

In general, I would say that Germany tends to be a homogenous country (small rural Bavarian or Wurttemburgian districts are as productive and wealthy as big cities), whereas France is more a country of big contrasts, a bit like the US, with very productive and wealthy large cities, and rather unproductive and less well-off rural areas. Of course the big difference with the US is the huge regional equalization in France. Thanks to redistribution by the French state, you don't really notice the sharp differences on the ground, because money from the big cities is pumped to fund the rural areas. It's not like you're going to see potholes on the roads in Creuse or Cantal, even though their headline GDP per capita is as low as the Italian Mezzogiorno. In fact the roads and public equipments would tend to be in better shape in the rural areas with low GDP per capita, because the French state has always had a tendency to favor disproportionately the rural areas, to the detriment of the big cities which sorely need investment (the northern districts of Marseille or the northern banlieues of Paris come to mind).

France is extremely homogeneous outside of Paris as far as GDP is concernced, much more so than Germany, as a quick look at NUTS 2-level data confirms.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Miu

France is extremely homogeneous outside of Paris as far as GDP is concernced, much more so than Germany, as a quick look at NUTS 2-level data confirms.

It's homogeneous at NUTS-2 level, yes, but French NUTS-2 are large regions the size of entire European countries like Switzerland, Austria, or Denmark.

The real diversity is at NUTS-3 level, the departments, where you can see big difference between large urban metro areas and smaller rural areas.

[Miu]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

It's homogeneous at NUTS-2 level, yes, but French NUTS-2 are large regions the size of entire European countries like Switzerland, Austria, or Denmark.

The real diversity is at NUTS-3 level, the departments, where you can see big difference between large urban metro areas and smaller rural areas.

The urban/rural discrepancy exists everywhere, which is why a comparison at the NUTS-2 level makes more sense IMO. That being said, France also appears to be more homogeneous than the other large EU countries at the NUTS-3 level.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Miu

The urban/rural discrepancy exists everywhere, which is why a comparison at the NUTS-2 level makes more sense IMO. That being said, France also appears to be more homogeneous than the other large EU countries at the NUTS-3 level.

As I said, you're gonna find much less of that urban/rural discrepancy in Germany.

And the level comparable to German NUTS-2 in France is NUTS-3. The French NUTS-2 are very large, more comparable to German NUTS-1.

[mousquet]

You guys don't sweat the homogeneity thing with your nuts technical terms, eh? Of course it's generally homogeneous, as a natural consequence of the French egalitarian ideals which our entire population (including ourselves on this forum) was soaked in straight from elementary school, for the much much better if you ask me. Questions and disagreements are about how to actually and effectively implement these ideals by connecting them to economic efficiency. That's still a huge challenge, as shown by this single phrase.

Originally Posted by Miu

France is extremely homogeneous outside of Paris as far as GDP is concernced.

Well, that's the hellish problem. There's only one "outside of" in there, whereas in a perfect world, there wouldn't be any at all. So my point is there should be several "outside of." I think sometimes, we should proceed by little temporary concessions over the strict principles, but it'd just be like crafty tricks until everyone catches up on the so called luckiest through friendly, respectful, smartly regulated - that means both fair and flexible enough as much as possible - competition. I think that's understandable, especially when economic competition always brings about more jobs and created wealth, that is systematic. That's why I'm in favor of further decentralization in the country. It would most definitely allow such tricks, like they do in the US. I don't think any territory would ever be left abandoned anyway. We French are certainly often rude and obnoxious, but I feel like most of us truly love our country. So I don't think any of us would ever be abandoned in a struggle even in a more competitive inner environment. That just would be immoral and too ugly. If you carefully watch what actually happens over there, you see that in the US, in spite of their seemingly harsh system, they won't do that ugly either.

[nito]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Well, East Germany is richer than non-Londonian UK, which is even more shocking.

It is a bit odd separating countries into segments as alluded to above, but the UK GDP per capita figures for the period don’t really come as much of a surprise considering the substantial contraction in the British economy following the financial crisis, ongoing population growth through the downturn, and valuation of the pound against other currencies (a 25% variation from 2007 to 2011 with the dollar for instance).

The present day (2014) picture for the British economy is substantially more upbeat; unemployment is now below that of Germany and the economy is the fastest growing in the G7.

[Miu]

^The UK's unemployment rate is actually still over 1 percentage point higher than Germany's.

[mousquet]

@nito No doubt you're correct. From a French perspective, the problem with the British economy is it also seems exremely sensitive to conjunctures, which explains those rather spectacular and raw changes in the UK from time to time. Nowadays, most the French usually hate that. It makes them feel unsecured. They like things to be balanced and stable. That's an issue in times of global growth because it tends to slow down our own. Unlike the UK's, France's economy's not reactive enough to a positive environment. On the other hand, the French weren't so troubled when you guys were struggling for the crisis.

I wouldn't praise any French model anyway, because I think it's too static, generally both too rigid and too slow and mainly serving a certain establishment over here. But the fact is most in France were still at a relative peace when you guys in Britain were in pain. Now, the struggle is coming to France indeed.