The Big Cycle card on Empire Rankings illustrates Ray Dalio’s idea that great powers rise, peak, and decline over long periods. It draws a stylized trajectory for each country from 1500 to 2030. The card labels these curves illustrative: they are a teaching aid shaped around the framework, not a plot of measured historical data.
How it works
- Countries Dalio discusses at length, such as the US, China, the UK, the Netherlands, and Spain, have hand-tuned curves reflecting when they rose and peaked.
- Other countries get a generated curve based on the size of their economy today.
- Values run on a 0 to 100 scale, in 10-year steps.
Step-by-step
- Open Empire Rankings and scroll to The Big Cycle.
- Use Country to pick one country. The card shows its curve, plus its current score, global rank, and trajectory.
- Use Window to show the last 100 years, the last 250 years, or all of it.
- Pick All Countries in the Country menu to overlay many curves at once. Then use Region and Show (Top 5 up to All) to control how many appear.
- In All Countries mode, hover a line to highlight it, and click a country in the legend to pin or unpin it. The US, China, the UK, Germany, and Japan are pinned by default. Click Reset pins to go back.
Troubleshooting
- Too many lines? Narrow the regions or choose Top 5.
- Looking for measured data? Use Global Power Rankings, Country Scorecards, or Debt Burden Cycles instead.
- Chart cramped on mobile? Rotate to landscape.
Things to know
Re-indexing every line to an anchor country and clicking a year for a per-dimension snapshot are not currently available.
Next in Global Analysis: Empire Rankings: 18-Dimension Power Index and Geopolitical Events Feed (ISR).
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FAQ
Q: Is the Big Cycle real historical data?
A: No. The curves are illustrative shapes based on the framework.
Q: How far back does the chart go?
A: To 1500, with points every 10 years through 2030.
Q: What does pinning do?
A: It keeps chosen countries highlighted while the rest fade.