During the recent federal election, some business and political commentators used data regarding Canada’s relative performance in growing its “GDP per capita” to argue that Canadians have experienced a “lost decade” of stagnation and falling living standards. In this two-part analysis that first appeared here and here in Policy Options magazine (published by the Institute for Research on Public Policy), Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford explains how GDP per capita is calculated – and why it is not appropriate for measuring human well-being or economic progress.