Look at median, and not mean GDP per capita

Re:Look at median, and not mean GDP per capita by cycomanic on Monday August 08, 2022 @03:44AM (#32383207)

> GDP has something to do with income, certainly.

Well I'd say that GDP is much more like revenue than income. You're certainly correct that they are related, as income is typically some percentage of revenue (even negative) however the actual percentage is different for every entity, so it somewhat meaningless.

> But I think that the article's author suffers a fundamental failing of understanding of why people look at GDP per capita. It's not because they're trying to understand the experience of individuals within the country at all -- it's because they're trying to understand how rich the country is, normalized to its size.

Completely agree. Generally there are better metrics if you want to look at the income distribution for a country, e.g. the Gini index.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Look at median, and not mean GDP per capita by JumpCrisscross on Monday August 08, 2022 @04:03AM (#32383308)

> GDP is much more like revenue than income

There isn't a great analogy for it on the individual or corporate level. GDP is a measure on transactions within a system. A person can't meaningfully transact within themselves.

[ Parent | on HN ]