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by peyton 1415 days ago
GDP per capita is a yardstick for labor productivity. I’m generally interested in the cost of doing business in various places. GDP per capita is a good metric.
2 comments

> GDP per capita is a yardstick for labor productivity.

Or how much oil will gush out of the ground if you drill a hole in the right place.

>drill a hole

>labor

I believe you are saying the same thing

Only if the value of a hole of equivalent dimensions is constant and independent of location.

There's a whole Disney movie that demonstrates not all holes are created equal.

Well no, the whole point of measuring country differences in labor productivity is that in some countries spending x hours to drill a hole in the ground is vastly more productive than in others.
The point here is that, if we want to use GDP as a proxy for labor productivity, then including wealth from extractive industries isn’t that useful because it tells us much more about the geology of the country then about the labor force.
It's a yardstick for productivity per capita, from both labor and capital. I mean, I guess that's just saying "gross domestic product per capita" in different words.