To continue with my preceding post of Friday on Quebec’s debt between 1900 and 1959, I am publishing the debt-to-GDP ratio which sadly can only begin in 1926 since the only series I have with regard to provincial domestic product begins in 1926. However, it is quite telling that in 1959, Quebec’s debt stood only at 4.64% of GDP. At the start of the war, the figure increased dramatically to slightly above 24 %. This is quite telling because it illustrates how the government of Quebec grew massively during the 1930s (it did grow as I will show in future weeks).
However, I wish to make an “accounting comment”. As I have argued in earlier posts on this blog, wartime GDP (and GNP) measures are wholly inaccurate since it is hard to assign a value to weapons and munitions whose sole consumers will be enemy soldiers. I do not consider it a good measure of “valuable” economic output. I am currently working to imitate the Higgs/Kuznets of GNP and GDP figures for wartime periods, but for the time being, please take this GDP series as the most accurate there is.
Vincent Geloso 