Which states are most vulnerable to Europe crisis?

State Risk of Recession from Europe’s Financial Crisis
By Bill Conerly, Businomics, Conerly Consulting

The greatest risk to the United States economy right now is a recession triggered by the European financial crisis. Even though my best estimate is that we will avoid a recession, the risk is certainly high.

I’m writing an article for bankers on this topic, and I wondered how much states varied in their exports to Europe. My own state of Oregon has a fairly high level of exports relative to GDP, but a relatively light share of its exports head to Europe. As a data guy, I did the obvious: grab some numbers and command Excel to do the long division. (Exports are from http://tse.export.gov/TSE/TSEHome.aspx, and GDP comes from http://www.bea.gov/)

Exports to Europe

The data are not perfect, but they do give a general idea of how high each state’s direct risk from Europe is. I say direct risk because there’s also indirect risk: if a bunch of East Coast states go into recession, the West Coast can’t avoid it even though their direct exports to Europe are small.

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