When GDP per capita alone is a wrong measure… Gini coefficient versus GDP per capita

Via Patrick Georges, Associate Professor, University of Ottawa

“When GDP per capita alone is a wrong measure…

The so-called LinkedIn ‘experts’ on Canadian productivity have emphasised again and again that the performance of Canada (as measured by GDP per capita) over the last decade has been rather mediocre wrt the USA performance.

My post does not try to contradict this ‘per se’. Yet, let’s not forget that the measurement of ‘GDP per capita’ assumes that each individual in a country receives the exact same share of the pie (pie= GDP). However, in a country like the USA where a few oligarchs get the largest share of the pie, ‘GDP per capita’ is not a relevant measure of the well-being of the overall population.

In the graph below, I plot GDP per capita on the Y-axis and the Gini Index on the x-axis (where a lower value for the Gini index — when one moves to the right — means a greater equality among individuals of a country).

Under this perspective, it is far from clear that Canadian performance is that bad relative to USA’s because its GDP is shared more equally among its population.”