MN gross state product ranking relatively volatile

Having written about Minnesota's per capita personal income Monday, I thought I'd look at gross state product, which is also available from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

I was surprised at how much Minnesota bounces around in the rankings for economic growth. (Mouse over the chart to see the underlying data points.)

In 2007, for example, Minnesota's economy barely budged, growing a mere 0.2 percent, one ninth the nation's growth rate. Minnesota's economic growth ranked 42nd among the 50 states that year. But in 2008, the first full year of the great recession, and the hot zone of the financial crisis, Minnesota's economic growth accelerated, even as the nation's economy headed south. That year Minnesota went from 42nd to 7th among the states in economic growth.

Minnesota tanked with the nation in 2009, but then bounced back in 2010, with economic growth reaching 3.9 percent, enough to rank 16th.

What does it mean? Apparently economic growth at the state level can be quite uneven.

That's what the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland found when researchers examined state GDP growth from 2007 - 2011.

"The spread in growth rates from low to high is quite broad. The bottom five states had declines of 5 percent, while the top 5 states saw GDP expand by over 7 percent from 2007 to 2011," researchers Timothy Dunne and Kyle Fee wrote.

At least Minnesota is among the states that have seen an increase rather than a decline in the total value of goods and services produced in the state over that time.

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