> 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.
Remember good GDP versus bad GDP; a traffic jam increases GDP, but isn't anything particularly worth buying. Accumulated capital (like Notre Dame and the Louvre) doesn't show up in GDP either, and if anything tends to lower it. There's a lot of bad GDP and not much capital accumulation in the US...
Climate also doesn't show up in GDP, now that I think of it, and I think that has a lot to do with the Mississippi situation. Who wants to live in hundred-degree heat with hundred-percent humidity?
"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.
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"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.
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.
"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.
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.
Oh man you're mixing up so many concepts. GDP is product - what value you produce during the year. Nothing is produced during a traffic jam. If you want to see accumulated wealth and climate taken into account, compare quality of life.
He's right though, a traffic jam creates a problem that must be solved, and someone solving that problem (providing gas, advertising on the radio while you helplessly listen, etc) will sell product.
Wikipedia describes three ways of modeling GDP: production, income, and expenditure. A traffic jam means more production of fuel (and vehicles, accounting for wear and tear), more income for fuel producers and mechanics, and higher expenditures (fuel, wear and tear, and radio ads); GDP rises on all three measures. Free time does not contribute to GDP; neither does use of accumulated capital.
Less free time means less demand for services catering to people's free time, and consequently less production of, income from, and expenditures on such services.
Remember good GDP versus bad GDP; a traffic jam increases GDP, but isn't anything particularly worth buying. Accumulated capital (like Notre Dame and the Louvre) doesn't show up in GDP either, and if anything tends to lower it. There's a lot of bad GDP and not much capital accumulation in the US...
Climate also doesn't show up in GDP, now that I think of it, and I think that has a lot to do with the Mississippi situation. Who wants to live in hundred-degree heat with hundred-percent humidity?