1) Do you know of any information on U.S. % of world GDP both in terms of PPP and Exchange rates. I would love more info. on this, web links or even a book.
2) Even better yet, do you have any info. on the HISTORY of U.S. % of world GDP in terms of PPP and exchange rates?
3) Which is more relevant, PPP or exchange rates?
Let me start with this:
First get the facts, then you can distort 'em as much as you want
--Mark Twain
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics
--Benjamin Disraeli
If you ask two economists the same question, you're bound to get at least three different answers.
3) Which figure is more relevant depends on what you are looking at and what your goal is. No matter what you do, all you will have is a rough guess. A $10,000 salary in Hannibal Missouri and New York City are two different animals because of purchasing power, hence the index. When you throw in exchange rates, you are in for a headache. You can just use the raw number or go for formulas that determine the effect of policies on the currency. Just be clear which numbers you are using when you present. You can see what happenned in this thread because I was using one method and bushrocks was using another. Confusion.
2) For historical numbers I start with my annual Britannica set, an almanac, and an atlas. From there I go to the internet and cross check my facts as much as possible.
1) According to Britannica, the US GNP for 1999 was 8,879,500,000,000 out of 29,278,809,000,000 or 30.33%
I use Google.com for the vast majority of my searches. Try many many different combinations of key words.
Here is the official government site http://www.bea.gov/
I found this http://www.bea.doc.gov/bea/dn/gdplev.xls
And this http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45/016.html