Virginia Economy Outperforms U.S.
Economic growth in Virginia, which began to accelerate in the early 1980s, continued to outperform the nation in 1985, according to a University of Virginia study.</br></br>The state's gross state product (GSP), which measures the value of the goods and services produced and is the state-level equivalent to the gross national product (GNP), totaled $95 billion in 1985, compared with $87 billion the previous year, the study reported.</br></br>The real GSP, adjusted for inflation, totaled $84.7 billion in 1985, a 5.1 percent increase over the comparable 1984 period. The GNP increased about 2.7 percent in 1985, or about half the growth Virginia experienced.</br></br>"Historically, this increase is considerably above the average," said Robert W. Cox, who conducted the study for the Tayloe Murphy Institute. "Virginia has been growing faster than the United States over time since about 1958. But, since 1981, it has expanded at a much greater rate," he said.</br></br>Since the Tayloe Murphy Institute first began keeping records in 1958, the real GSP has grown at an average annual rate of 3.8 percent, compared with a 3 percent average increase in the GNP.