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"Accumulated capital (like Notre Dame and the Louvre) doesn't show up in GDP either, and if anything tends to lower it." Notre Dame and the Louvre are a couple

"Accumulated capital (like Notre Dame and the Louvre) doesn't show up in GDP either, and if anything tends to lower it." Notre Dame and the Louvre are a couple of the things that make Paris the single biggest tourist destination in the world, from which it derives a huge amount of GDP. The French tourist officials make sure to monetize the Louvre for all they can. * "Mississippi's GDP per capita being similar to that of France, Italy or Spain is really hard to reconcile with the fact that many of us would love to live in the latter countries and couldn't be paid to move to Mississippi." No, it isn't, because people wouldn't love to move to France/Italy/Spain, they don't even want to. People say they'd love to live in Spain/Italy/France, but the fact that they don't reveals it's mostly cheap talk. There are some exceptions in professions that make well above the average for these countries (also retirees, students). Europe is really very nice if you make well above the average, but this is not (by definition) the typical life in those countries. Very few Americans are excited by a 24k take home salary in a mid-sized French town, or 15k in an Italian formerly wealthy industrial city. The vast majority of migration flows are up the GDP gradient.

Rasco 10y ago
"The French tourist officials make sure to monetize the Louvre for all they can." The access to the Louvre (permanent collection) is free for : everyone under 18 years old whatever the nationality, every resident of the European Economic Area (31 countries) under 25 years old, everyone under 26 years old whatever the nationality the Friday from 6 p.m. to 9:45 p.m., everyone the first sunday of each month between october and march and on july 14th, other specific groups of people, And it is 15€ for everyone else for a day. Not what I would call particularly excessive. http://www.louvre.fr/en/hours-admission/admission http://www.louvre.fr/en/hours-admission/admission The Louvre still relies mainly on public subvention (102 M€ in 2015) tickets bring ~65M€, private subventions ~12M€. But yes it surely brings people and has a good impact on the local economy.
- luispedrocoelho 10y ago
  The benefits to French GDP are not mainly from the tickets, but from the tourism-related revenue (hotel stays, restaurants, flights, &c). The official Paris tourist office has a picture of the Louvre on the top of its front page. Let me put it this way: if I say that google monetizes its search engine as much as it can, I don't mean it charges you to search.
  - Rasco 10y ago
    "The benefits to French GDP are not mainly from the tickets, but from the tourism-related revenue (hotel stays, restaurants, flights, &c)." yes, you can infer that from the last sentence in my previous comment, but still, they do not monetize it as much as they can because they could have decided not to make the entrance free for the youngsters and they would make more money even if the number of young visitors decreases. The difference with the google search engine is if you are not willing to pay and so do not use the search engine then google won't make money at all from you whereas few people will decide no to go to Paris just because the Louvre entrance is not free.
clock_tower 10y ago
Perhaps I should've given less dramatic examples than Notre Dame and the Louvre: stone cities, stone bridges, houses that have been inhabited since the 16th century, that sort of thing -- things we don't have in the US. I can't comment on the rest of the US, but I'm seriously considering emigrating to Europe at some point, for the sake of long-term stability. The US might be in a very bad situation 300 years from now; I doubt that France, Germany, or the northern parts of Spain and Italy will.

Rasco 10y ago

"The French tourist officials make sure to monetize the Louvre for all they can." The access to the Louvre (permanent collection) is free for : everyone under 18 years old whatever the nationality, every resident of the European Economic Area (31 countries) under 25 years old, everyone under 26 years old whatever the nationality the Friday from 6 p.m. to 9:45 p.m., everyone the first sunday of each month between october and march and on july 14th, other specific groups of people, And it is 15€ for everyone else for a day. Not what I would call particularly excessive. http://www.louvre.fr/en/hours-admission/admission http://www.louvre.fr/en/hours-admission/admission The Louvre still relies mainly on public subvention (102 M€ in 2015) tickets bring ~65M€, private subventions ~12M€. But yes it surely brings people and has a good impact on the local economy.

luispedrocoelho 10y ago
The benefits to French GDP are not mainly from the tickets, but from the tourism-related revenue (hotel stays, restaurants, flights, &c). The official Paris tourist office has a picture of the Louvre on the top of its front page. Let me put it this way: if I say that google monetizes its search engine as much as it can, I don't mean it charges you to search.
- Rasco 10y ago
  "The benefits to French GDP are not mainly from the tickets, but from the tourism-related revenue (hotel stays, restaurants, flights, &c)." yes, you can infer that from the last sentence in my previous comment, but still, they do not monetize it as much as they can because they could have decided not to make the entrance free for the youngsters and they would make more money even if the number of young visitors decreases. The difference with the google search engine is if you are not willing to pay and so do not use the search engine then google won't make money at all from you whereas few people will decide no to go to Paris just because the Louvre entrance is not free.

clock_tower 10y ago

Perhaps I should've given less dramatic examples than Notre Dame and the Louvre: stone cities, stone bridges, houses that have been inhabited since the 16th century, that sort of thing -- things we don't have in the US. I can't comment on the rest of the US, but I'm seriously considering emigrating to Europe at some point, for the sake of long-term stability. The US might be in a very bad situation 300 years from now; I doubt that France, Germany, or the northern parts of Spain and Italy will.