Gross Domestic Product: What It Is and What It Means

GDP, or gross domestic product, is the sum total value of all goods and services produced by a country within a given year. To achieve this sum, everything produced and exported, all of the money spent by consumers and government, investments, and many other contributing factors are calculated and combined. A nation’s GDP is used as the main indicator of the economic status of that nation. In general, the higher a country’s GDP is, the greater the health of that country’s economy. However, GDP is not as helpful or accurate a calculation as “real GDP”. Real GDP is a term that refers

Gross Domestic Product, also known as GDP, is defined as the dollar value of all final goods and service produced within the border of a country during a specific period of time, typically in one year. GDP measures the value for the whole country, and it also changes quickly. We can take a look at the trends of US GDP in the website of the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

As we all know, measuring Gross Domestic product is usually complicated. However, this can be done through three means. The GDP calculation techniques include expenditure method, the product technique

"GDP or Gross Domestic Product is defined as the total value of final goods and services produced within a country's border during a specific period, usually a year." The phrase "produced within a

GDP: Gross Domestic Product per capita by Purchasing Power Parities (in international dollars, fixed 2011 prices). The inflation and differences in the cost of living between

As the United States moved further away from the immediate economic boom in the final years of the World War and the following several years, its economy showed a major decline. While the country fought one of the biggest wars of all time, defense spending rose to levels as high as 37.8 percent of U.S. gross domestic product (Teslik). World War II was financed through debts and an increase in taxes, and this negatively effected both consumption and investment. Some believed that the war would improve the economy due to the increase in GDP during those years, but at the end of the war, the economic growth fell back to the same trend it had been following during the 1930 's (Institute for Economics and Peace). During the 1960 's, Federal spending soared because the government was attempting to fund new programs such as Medicare, Food Stamps, and various plans to improve the education system (US Department of State). Then, with the war in Vietnam on the horizon, military spending began increasing as well, and the government started spending a surplus of money, since it had to fund both the war on poverty domestically, and the prepare the nation for another war internationally. The government raised taxes throughout the 1950 's and into the 1960 's with income tax rates reaching the high 80% (Top US Tax Rates Over Time, graph). The government was unable to raise enough revenue through taxes, as they had just spent billions of dollars on the Second World War, and inflation

When it comes to manufacturing, some people might argue that U.S. manufacturing is shrinking and all the jobs are gone into oversea because of what they heard from media or some reasonable stories such a massive job lost in about a decade ago, and the rapid growth of other competitiveness countries like China. Although, there were manufacturing job lost has happened in during the past two decades, it does not mean that it will continue in the future. Baily and Bosworth (2014) stated that, “…what is missed in a focus on a single sector is that job weakness after 2000 was not just a manufacturing issue; employment in the entire US economy went through a negative shift after 2000” (p. 11). Furthermore, manufacturing is one of the most important sector in U.S. economy since it takes a large portion of U.S. gross domestic product. According to “Economy: overview” (2015), “The US has the most technologically powerful economy in the world, with a per capita GDP of $54,800”. About 20.7 percent of the GDP is from the manufacturing industry sector. However, the future of U.S. manufacturing will highly depend on its technological improvement in order to retain in the competiveness global market.

The gross domestic product(GDP) in the US is the total value of goods and services in a fiscal

hiding something behind the actual unemployment rate in America or people in America are still feeling the effects of the 2008 recession. The housing market crash in the fourth quarter of 2008 may still be affecting many families today. Since consumer spending drives two thirds of the economy, according to econoday, it also affects retail sales because when consumers are confident in their economy, there are willing to buy more (Econoday: “Consumer confidence”). This, in turn, affects U.S. retail sales which is also a reflection of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product. These indicators have a chain reaction because when one changes, it affects the rest.

GDP consists of Gross (before taking into consideration the depreciation in the value of the product), Domestic (within the borders of a country) and Product which simply means a good or service. So what does it all mean when all these three factors are interlinked? GDP is simply the market value of all the final goods and services produced within a country in a given time period – usually a year (Parkin et al. 2005: 438).

Gross Domestic Product is the total amount of the government’s activity is regards to the economic spending. This amount is a cumulative of four different parts. The four factors involved in Gross Domestic Product are consumption, investment, government spending, and the amount of exports minus the imports. All of these parts make up what Simon Kruznets named Gross Domestic Product in 1937. Kruznets was born in 1901 on April 30 in Pinsk, Russia. Before his death, on July 8th, 1985 in Cambridge, MA, he received his degree from Harvard Law. From there, Kruzets became an economist for the National Bureau of Economic Research. In 1971, Simon Kruznest received a Nobel Prize for his measurement in national income accounting. His innovative involvement in working to create a simplified solution to account for all the government activity was also a major reason for him being awarded with a Nobel Prize. He was not only concerned with the economic growth of the United States, but also that of poor countries. Simon Kruznets found out ways to improve those countries economy based on his findings, regarding the growth and difference of disparity between rich and poor people. During all of this, Kruznets taught economics at Harvard, Johns Hopkins and the University of Pennsylvania. Although Simon Kruznets was a major player in the

Gross Domestic Product (or known as GDP), is defined as, “aggregate output as the dollar value of all final goods and services produced within the borders of a country during a specific period of time, typically a year” (McConnell, Brue, & Flynn, 2012). This measures the value of the output in monetary terms, and you can check current trends of the GDP by taking a look at the Bureau of Economic Analysis website. Today, we are taking a look at the “Release Highlights” link to check the most current trends within the GDP.

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) represents the monetary value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country 's geographic borders in a determined period of time. It is used as a quantitative measure of the total economic activity of a nation, and it is usually calculated on an annual basis.

Gross domestic product (GDP) of a nation is comprised of four primary components. These components; consumption, investment, government spending and net exports are the measure of the monetary value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country 's borders in over a given period of time. This can be broken down in any time frame but is normally used quarterly and annually. The GDP can be calculated as; GDP (Y) = consumption (C) + investment (I) + government spending (G) + net exports (NX) or Y=C+I+G+NX. The key word here is finished goods and not all goods.

The most common way to measure economic growth is using Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Specifically, real GDP is defined as the total value of everything produced in an economy the after removing the effect of inflation. GDP calculations include everything produced in the economy including services. Often real GDP is used to compare one period to the next to determine growth of periods of time. Economists have found various ways to delve into GDP including looking at the measure on a