3 ms·
Productivity measures, as GDP per hour worked, are highly skewed by things that we don’t think of as “productivity”. Go and look and the “most productive count
by refurb 3y ago
Productivity measures, as GDP per hour worked, are highly skewed by things that we don’t think of as “productivity”.
Go and look and the “most productive countries”. Who is #1? Ireland.
Why? Because GDP is very high. Why? Because multinationals use Ireland as a tax haven.
They move IP to that country, then “charge” Google offices in other countries for that IP. That’s then added to Irish GDP.
Now what happens to that money. Does it get paid to Irish people? No, beyond the handful of people in the Google Ireland office, it goes back to Google USA when the profits are repatriated.
It’s the same thing for other “highest productivity countries” - Luxembourg (finance), Norway (oil), Switzerland (finance).
They all have very high profit activities that are outsized to the hours workers put in.
- s_dev 3y ago> Productivity measures, as GDP per hour worked, are highly skewed by things that we don’t think of as “productivity”. The real problem is using a single tool and expecting it to fit all uses. GDP as a metric is simply overused and like that law I'm sure some other HNer will help me out -- a measure ceases to be a good measure when it becomes a goal. Measuring the Irish economy is easy it's just GDP isn't really that useful when considering Ireland, there are plenty of other measures you can use to compare and contrast Ireland with other countries to guage how wealthy or productive it is. Always remember though that the GDP per capita of Alabama and Bavaria are approximately the same. Yet you would be insane to think Alambama is richer than Bavaria -- there are simply limits to GDP, like if you want to increase the GDP of your own country just start throwing rocks through windows. You're not adding value, just economic activity.