[adventured]

$89,000 GDP per capita vs $46,000 rather proves the point about productivity per butt. US office workers are extraordinarily productive in terms of what their work generates (thanks to numerous well understood things like the outsized US scaling abilities). Measuring beyond that is very difficult due to the variance of every business.

[ath92]

Weird take. Norway has about the same gdp per capita as the USA with stricter regulations than France. Ireland’s GDP per capita is higher than that of the USA, with less bureaucracy than France but more than the US. Not to mention that all of these are before adjusting for PPP. Almost as if GDP per capita is not a good measurement of productivity.

[FabHK]

Many wrinkles here.

First, one should probably look at GNP (or even GNI) rather than GDP to reduce the distortionary impact of foreign direct investment, company headquarters for tax reasons, etc.

Next, need to distinguish between market rate and PPP, as you highlight.

Lastly, these are all measures of output (per capita), while productivity is output per input, in this context output per hour worked. There the differences are less pronounced.

[HPsquared]

Monaco is the most productive country in the world in nominal GDP per capita. A very industrious place, it seems!

[cataphract]

A part of that figure is an artifact of how strong the dollar is though.

[palata]

> $89,000 GDP per capita vs $46,000 rather proves the point about productivity per butt.

So if I work 24h/day in a farm in Afghanistan, I should earn more than software developers in the Silicon Valley (because I'm pretty sure that they sleep)? Is that how you say GDP works?

[77pt77]

Yes, and Louisiana has a GDP per capita on par of higher than France and is a shithole compared to the worst areas of Europe, let alone France.

But I wouldn't expect someone like you to know, understand or even acknowledge it.