The 10 Largest Economies in the World

Source: International Monetary Fund World Economic Outlook database: October 2023; 2022 data represents actual figures; Aside from data for India, 2023 figures reflect estimates. All data is subject to revision.

America’s gross domestic product in 2022 was more than 40% greater than that of China, the world No. 2. Even more striking, U.S. GDP was over five times that of the next two largest economies, Japan and Germany. Recent news that Japan and the United Kingdom slipped into recession by a common though unofficial measure of downturns only highlights the gap between the U.S. and its peer economies, while China also is facing economic challenges of its own.

Indeed, the strength of the U.S. economy following the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic has been a marvel to many economists and world economic experts. They credit a robust labor market and the dynamic nature of the U.S. in creating new businesses and technologies, as well as massive fiscal and monetary stimulus during the pandemic for an impressive outcome in 2023. The U.S. economy grew by 2.5% last year.

In contrast, Japan saw its economy contract during the last quarter of 2023 due to weak domestic consumption. In the U.K., high interest rates and low productivity have been culprits in the country’s subpar economy.

Maxime Darmet, senior economist for U.S. and France at Allianz Trade, says that since the pandemic, Europe has lost traction when compared with the U.S. This can be seen in the firm’s research on spending patterns: Consumers in the U.K. held onto their savings and Americans used their stored cash to keep spending, helping fuel economic growth.

Since the end of 2019, just before COVID-19 arrived in America, the U.S. economy has expanded by 8.2%, Darmet says, while the Eurozone has grown by 3.5% and Japan by 2.8%. “The difference is fiscal policy,” he says, with the U.S. Congress putting stimulus money directly into the hands of consumers and European policymakers prioritizing infrastructure and other systematic investments that have been much slower to generate economic value. Also, as the printer of the reserve currency for the world, the U.S. could borrow more money through the sale of government debt and run a bigger deficit as a percentage of its economy than countries in Europe.

“What we have seen in the U.K. and European countries is pretty similar – the growing divergence with the U.S. economy outperforming,” Darmet adds. Notably, despite America’s economic dominance, the country lags slightly in perceptions of its economic influence. In the 2023 Best Countries rankings from U.S. News, global survey respondents considered China to be the No. 1 most economically influential country, with the U.S. coming in at No. 2.