Louisiana GDP edges up; growth ranks 36th

Oil, gas activity biggest reasons for ‘happy’ gains

Louisiana’s gross domestic product in 2011 increased a half-percentage point from 2010, a report issued Tuesday by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis shows.

The increase places the Louisiana economy 36th in the nation when measuring the growth of GDP, a measure of all goods and services produced by an economy. Louisiana’s GDP in 2011 was $205.9 billion, according the advance statistics released by the BEA, ranking the state No. 22 in the nation when measuring total GDP.

Louisiana accounted for 1.7 percent of U.S. GDP, which the Bureau of Economic Analysis puts at $13.1 trillion. This statistic has been trending up the last three years. Louisiana GDP was 1.5 percent of the U.S. total in 2009 and 1.6 percent in 2010.

“If you look around us — if you look at Florida, if you look at Alabama, if you look at Mississippi, … if you look at Arkansas — their share has basically stayed constant, which is another indication that we’ve been doing better in this recovery than the nation as a whole, I think,” said Loren Scott, a retired Louisiana economist.

“It’s certainly the kind of trend that makes you happy,” Scott said.

Not surprising, oil and gas activity contributed the most to the state’s gains in GDP, adding 0.56 percent to the state’s growth in real GDP.

Even though mining, the sector that includes oil and gas drilling, was not a major contributor to real GDP growth for the nation, it was a large contributor in several states. In North Dakota, the fastest-growing state in 2011, mining contributed 2.81 percentage points to real GDP growth of 7.6 percent.

Real GDP increased in 43 states and the District of Columbia in 2011, according to the BEA report. Real GDP is an inflation-adjusted measure.

Durable-goods manufacturing, professional, scientific and technical services, and information services were the leading contributors to real U.S. economic growth. U.S. real GDP by state grew 1.5 percent in 2011 after a 3.1 percent increase in 2010.