California has slipped a notch in the bragging-rights totem pole to the world\u2019s fifth-largest economy in the latest update on global business output.<\/p>\n
Using gross domestic product as the yardstick, my trusty spreadsheet compared new 2025 estimates for nations, released by the International Monetary Fund<\/a> on Tuesday, Oct. 14, to state-level readings for the second quarter of 2025 from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, released in September<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Golden State economy was generating goods and services at a nationwide leading annual rate of $4.215 trillion in the second quarter \u2013 up 5% in a year, according to the BEA. That ranked fourth-best on a global scale<\/a> when compared with the IMF\u2019s April scorecard \u2013 behind only the U.S., China, and Germany.<\/p>\n But the latest IMF estimate for 2025 business output shows Japan\u2019s economy at $4.28 trillion, up 6.5% in a year. So, it reclaimed the world\u2019s No. 4 spot, surpassing the Golden State.<\/p>\n GDP is a broad measure of the production of goods and services, often seen as a yardstick of economic vibrancy. This geeky economic statistic has morphed into political brownie points for the state when comparing California\u2019s business output to the world by contrasting GDP, which is priced in U.S. dollars, without adjusting for inflation.<\/p>\n IMF stats show that right behind Japan and California is India at $4.125 trillion, up 5.5%, and the United Kingdom with $3.96 trillion, up 8.6%. So roughly $300 billion \u2013 a 7% gap \u2013 separates these three nations and California on this vanity scorecard.<\/p>\n