Gross Domestic Product: Measuring the Income of Nations



Gross Domestic Product:

Measuring the Income of Nations

How do you measure how much income a person has? Typically we measure how much money a person has. But money isn't really the most basic way to measure income, since a person's money can be worthless unless there is something to buy. For example, in Germany after World War I a person with 6 trillion German marks could only buy one loaf of bread! Money was so worthless that it was used as fuel to heat homes and cook food.

A more accurate way to measure a person's income is to determine how many goods and services can be bought with the money that a person has earned. After all, the reason we want money is because it enables us to buy the goods and services we want. Similarly, when economists want to know the income of a certain country, the economists are interested in how many goods and services are available to the people of the country. There is a special term that economists use to measure a country's income – gross domestic product. Usually it is abbreviated GDP. Here is the important definition:

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) measures the market value of all final goods and services produced in an economy in a year.

The United States GDP measures the dollar value of all the goods and services produced in our economy during a year. As you can imagine, this is a pretty large amount. In the United States, for example, the 2013 GDP was over 16 trillion dollars ($16,768,100,000)!

Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

Since GDP is a statistic that shows the value of goods and services produced in a country in a particular year, all of the goods and services that are sold each year have to be counted.  Every new car and truck, every egg laid by every hen, every CD, every doughnut, burger, and taco has to be included.  Services must be counted, too.  Barbers, nurses, lawyers, computer programmers, and basketball players sell their services and these services are part of GDP.  Suppose all of these things and many more besides were stacked up in one big pile.  It would still be hard to know the value of all the goods and services produced by the economy, yet this is what the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) tries to measure.

How is it done?  First, instead of counting the actual goods made and sold and all of the services performed, economists add up what these things sold for in dollars and cents.  In other words, they are using money as a measure of value.  So, if people buy 2,000,000 bushels of apples at $1 per bushel and 2,000,000 books at $1 per book, then these purchases add $4,000,000 to the Gross Domestic Product.

In determining Gross Domestic Product, five different kinds of spending must be taken into account. 

1. Consumer spending - spending by ordinary consumers,

2. Investment spending - spending by businesses on new equipment,

3. Government spending - spending by all levels of Government

4. Exports - spending by foreigners who buy American goods

5. Imports - spending by Americans on foreign goods

Measuring the Gross Domestic Product each year can show if the economy is growing or shrinking, healthy or sick.  It is a standard by which the economy as a whole can be judged.  It can be used to compare one economy with another. It can also be used to compare an economy with itself over time.

Symbolically, GDP is represented by the equation: GDP = C + I + G + (X - M)

The letters in this equation represent the four kinds of spending mentioned above.  C is for consumer spending, I is for business investment spending, G is government spending, X is the spending by foreigners on the nation's exports, and M is the spending on imported goods from foreign nations. 

Per Capita GDP

GDP data helps economists compare the income levels of different countries. However, to make more accurate comparisons, economists use another term—per capita GDP. Per capita GDP measures the amount of GDP that is available to each person, assuming that income is distributed equally. For example, suppose country A has a GDP of $5,000, and country B has a GDP of $2,000. In which country do the people have higher levels of income and a higher standard of living? Answer: You can't really tell since you don't know how many people live in the countries!

| |GDP |Population |GDP ÷ |

| | | |Population |

|Country A |$5,000 |50 people |$100 |

|Country B |$2,000 |10 people |$200 |

Suppose country A has a population of 50, while country B has a population of only 10. The average amount of GDP for each person in country A would be $100 ($5,000/50 = $100). The average amount available for each person in country B would be $200 ($2,000/10 = $200). Even though country B has a lower total GDP it has a higher per capita GDP.

GDP per capita = GDP ÷ population

Per capita GDP is one way to determine how well-off the average person is in a country. Economists classify countries into groups according to income, or per capita GDP. High-income countries (HCs) have high standards of living with many goods and services. These countries usually rely on manufacturing, although some high-income countries, like Kuwait, are wealthy because of huge oil reserves. Middle-income countries (MCs) and low-income countries (LCs) rely more on agriculture, and have lower standards of living. These countries are sometimes called Third World or Developing Countries.

Problems with GDP

Although GDP data is very helpful it is not a perfect measure of how wealthy a country is. For one thing, certain valuable goods and services are not counted when figuring GDP. For example, GDP does not include the value of housework or lawn work done by a family. Or, in a developing country a poor farmer's family may eat practically all the food produced on the farm. That food would not be counted as part of GDP.

Another problem with GDP is that it doesn't tell us how the income is distributed within a country. If a country has a per capita GDP of $8,000 a year, this doesn't mean that everyone earns that much income. It means that $8,000 is the average income. In this country, some people could be very rich, while others could be very poor.

Also, GDP only measures material wealth. It is not a measure of genuine happiness or contentment. People who have much wealth are not always happier than those who have less. Perhaps you know someone who has a lot of money, but who is not very happy.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is probably a new concept for you. At first, it may be difficult to understand, but it is a very important concept to learn. GDP helps us to understand the different standards of living of people throughout the world.

| |

|Key Points to Remember: |

|Gross Domestic Product (GDP) measures the market value of the goods and services produced in a country in a year. |

|Per capita GDP measures the amount of GDP that is available for each person. |

|GDP is not a perfect measure for making comparisons. Valuable services such as housework or lawn work are not counted. GDP doesn't measure how income is |

|distributed in a country, and GDP isn't necessarily a measure of happiness. |

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download