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Originally Posted by Jason14h

You always use this example - but Ireland is the exception to the norm - a small country that literally created a strategy to get large corporations to set up benificial tax haven headquarters there

Alberta and Sask aren’t doing that . So while per capita GDP isn’t the best measurement and can be misleading , your example why it is misleading and “bad” is also …. Misleading and bad

For instance, though GDP per capita is an indirect measure of average income, it does not necessarily mean that the ‘typical’ person in the economy earns this amount. In a province like Alberta, GDP per capita tends to be much higher than average household income because of the tremendous value generated by our capital-intensive oil and gas industry.

In addition, GDP per capita has little to say about income distribution. For instance, suppose we had a 10-person economy with a total GDP of $1 million. While per capita GDP suggests that all ten people enjoy six-figure salaries, there could just as easily be a situation where one person earns $900,000 while the remaining nine make a little more than $11,000 each.

Likewise, if GDP per capita is growing, that growth could be accruing to the already wealthy with no benefit to the typical family. To better understand how different socioeconomic groups are faring, we need to use an indicator like the Gini Coefficient which measures the amount of inequality in an economy.

Source: Business Council of Alberta