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Comment by playday | Hacker News Reader

Then why is real gdp per capita in many Western European countries mostly stagnant since 2008? If what you’re saying was true, Europe should be growing faster than USA and even faster than countries like China that have much worse social safety nets.

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Because these benefits don’t necessary result in growth of real gdp per capita, but increase the stability and livability of a city.

A PhD student in many places in Europe can afford to have their own apartment and have kids. Where is that possible in usa?

In which European cities PhD can afford to buy apartment (Paris? London? Berlin?). Or you are speaking about smaller cities in which you can also make the same argument for US.

Sorry didn’t mean buy, I meant rent your own one bedroom apartment, rather than have roommates which is the norm in usa.

In terms of cities it would be all except maybe London and Paris.

Also in most European countries renting is just as good as buying because of favourable tenant laws

I do not think these two facts are linked. I don't think the US economy is growing faster because they have a less regulated healthcare system.

If anything one would intuitively think the opposite should be true. That with a better safety net, entrepreneurship should be more common in Europe, while Americans should be more risk-averse. But I think in this case there is a HUGE cultural (and maybe even partly epigenetic) component that is always ignored.

I don't know, but as someone pointes out, we EUropeans are less combative and maybe need less to satisfy our needs, so we don't run for more GDP? maybe it's enough?

I'm not saying it's good, but maybe it's just less pressure -> less force -> less progress.

There’s more to life than GDP. Economic growth is poor measure of collective happiness or quality of life. Are you going to argue that average quality of life in china is substantially better than Europe because their GDP growth is higher?

Going back to the original article, the subject is regarding ergodicity and economic benefits of cooperation. The commenter I’m replying to extended an analogy to claim that this research extends to certain countries social welfare system. My position is that this extension is outright false, that just because cooperation can create benefits under the conditions of the research, it doesn’t demonstrate economic growth results from social welfare policies.

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