California overtakes Brazil as world's 7th largest economy amid diverse businesses

Sacramento

CALIFORNIA is overtaking Brazil as the world's seventh-largest economy, bolstered by rising employment, home values and personal and corporate income, a year after the most-populous state surpassed Russia and Italy.

The Golden State, with an equivalent gross domestic product of US$2.20 trillion in 2013, expanded last year by almost every measure, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Brazil's gross domestic product, in contrast, declined one per cent from US$2.25 trillion in the first three quarters of 2014 as its export of raw materials fell.

Gov Jerry Brown, Democrat, sworn in this month to an unprecedented fourth term, is presiding over the turnaround as he steers away from persistent deficits and fiscal turmoil that prompted Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in 2012 to compare California to Greece, which has about a 10th of its GDP. California-based companies from Apple to Walt Disney handed investors a total return of…