Economics8 Nov 202611 min read

China Now Has the World's Largest Capital Stock — per Person, a Third of America's

The flow of world investment crossed in 2011; the accumulated stock crossed in 2022. Where the stock has and has not crossed — structures, equipment, housing, knowledge — says where the next two decades of building will go.

The Quant

⁦2026-W45⁩ edition

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The first piece in this series mapped where the world's $28.6 trillion of annual fixed investment takes place. Flows, however, are only half the ledger. What an economy owns is the stock — the accumulation of every past flow, minus decay. We have computed that stock for 48 economies over 1995–2024 using the perpetual inventory method: each year's investment flow added, last year's stock depreciated, by asset class where the data allow. The map that results reorders the world.

From flows to stocks: the $277 trillion map

The measured capital stock of these 48 economies stands at roughly $277 trillion in constant 2015 prices. The ranking matches the flow map only loosely, because stocks remember: they carry thirty years of building, weighted by how long each asset lasts.

China Now Has the World's Largest Capital Stock — per Person, a Third of America's

From flows to stocks: the $277 trillion map

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