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Comment by romanovcode | Hacker News Reader

Brandenburg is one of the poorest regions in Germany. Berlin as a city brings negative GDP to country.

I think they can just get it for (relatively) cheap there and that would be the main reason.

What you are trying to say is that the average GDP per capita of Berlin is lower than the average of Germany, thus having an overall negative effect on the per capita numbers for Germany. In this, Berlin stands alone among capitols. Usually, capitols are major "benefits" to their respective countries GDP per capita numbers.

But the statistic I assume you are referencing is a few years old, and Berlin has been the fastest growing state in Germany for quite a while now, a development that is still increasing. The numbers for 2019 aren't out yet, but I assume that at this point, Berlin is exactly average in per capita terms for Germany.

Why Berlin has been an outlier for capitols is quite obvious: It has only been Germanys capitol for a bit less than 30 years, and before that was divided.

Wages at the higher levels of education are not significantly lower in Berlin than anywhere else in Germany. Berlin (and Brandenburg) still has a somewhat higher levels of unemployment (at 7.x and 5.x%, respectively), but that doesn't really do much for such a project. Land is relatively cheap, but I doubt that makes much of a difference.

If I had to speculate, Tesla is concerned about finding people willing to relocate, and Berlin is a rather attractive destination even for people not speaking German.

That was my thought Berlin has the Cool Factor that other German Cities don't.

GDP is comparable to the concept of revenue for a company, which is not the same as profit/loss. Revenue cannot be negative unless the company is charging negative prices.

I think what you meant is that Berlin has a net inflow of tax money.

This chart[0] clearly shows that Germany would have +0.2% GDP per capita without Berlin.

[0] https://qz.com/753244/berlin-is-the-only-capital-city-in-eur...

That means the GDP per capita is lower than the country average, not that the GDP contribution is negative and not that getting rid of Berlin would be good for the German economy.

Think of big cities like managers. They don't produce any products, so you might conclude that they're a waste of money.

Likewise, cities have their place in a countries economy, even if it's not to directly produce goods and driving up the GDP per capita.

In even simpler words: Remove Berlin from Germany and the GDP of the rest of the country would also go down.

GDP measures value added (final output). If you want to measure total value of new goods and services you should look at Gross Output (GO). GO includes sales to other industries (intermediate inputs).

For example, US GDP is $21 trillion, US GO is $37 trillion.

Brandenburg and Berlin are fundamentally unrelated, they’re two completely distinct, and politically and (largely) economically independent regions. While Berlin is geographically within Brandenburg, they couldn’t be more different, and the geography is mostly of historical relevance when it comes to Berlin’s current economic position.

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