As recently as 1990, the United States accounted for a quarter of the world economy. The European Union was just a little over a quarter. Japan, east Asia and India combined made up roughly another quarter; Japan on its own was about a tenth of global GDP. (Australia was then, and still is, just over 1 per cent of global GDP.)
In fact, in my speech “Genesis, Diagnosis and Prognosis of the Current Global Financial Crisis”, published in BIS Review 34/2009, I had mentioned that there was significant risk that the then monetary policy environment of very low interest rates and unprecedented deluge of liquidity may yet again engender another bubble in the not too distant future!