The Usefulness of Gross Domestic Product as an Indicator of Economic Importance

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the value of everything produced in the economy for the year. It usually is used to provide economic growth rates and other important data, it is valued in terms of the cost of all inputs. Gross means total; domestic means it applies to everything produced within the economy, product means output. Standard of living refers to the wellbeing of the population, this requires a very wide range of data to measure effectively and I am going to find out how and if we can measure the standard of living and whether GDP is the best at it.

GDP is the calculation of the total goods and services produced in one year. It measures the economy's size and compares how the economy performs in other countries. GDP is measured in three different ways, as the value of goods and services produced, as domestically produced goods and services spending, and as a factor income from firms. With the value of goods and services produced, GDP is calculated by adding the goods and

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

The one way one can comprehend the United States economy is through looking at its GDP (Gross Domestic Product). Gross Domestic Product is the statistic employed to measure the aggregate output of the nation (Mankiw, 2011). More so, GDP is described as the total monetary value of finished services and goods that are produced in the country at a specific period in time. GDP is considered one of the principal pointers that gauge the health of a nation's economy and it is calculated in inflation-adjusted terms or in real terms (King, Gans & Mankiw, 2011). GDP entails all of public and private consumption, investments, government outlays, exports minus importers of a country. It is therefore calculated through the following formula GDP=C (consumption)+G (Government spending)+I (Investment)+NX(Exports-Imports) (Mankiw, 2011).

A lot of us have heard of the term GDP, especially toward the end of official year, but probably don't pay much attention to it. But to economists, businessmen, firms as well as governments, GDP is one of the most important tool used to reflect how a country do not only in economic but also in social and political perspectives. But what is GDP? What are its components? Why is it so important? And if GDP is that important and necessary, why are there still controversies against it?

“How many economists does it take to change a light bulb? None. If the light bulb needed changing the market would have already done it.”-Any website with economic jokes. However, the method that the market mentioned is being measured is neither the best nor the only way to measure economic progress of a country. Page 200 of Naked Economics quotes, “Any measure of economic progress depends on how you define progress. GDP just adds up the numbers. There is something to be said for that.” I believe that the narrator is giving a caveat that GDP is simply the culmination of numerical values from consumption, investment, government spending, and net exports and despite being useful, should not be the primary measurement of economic progress. Wheelman also states that any alternative measurement tools vary based on different people’s judgement of what to take into account. Similarly, I agree with Wheelman. I believe that there are instances where focusing on raw

Robert F Keneddy speech on GDP highlighted the unique aspects associated with the understanding of GDP. The speech talked about the meaning and importance of GDP and the misinterpretations that are often attached with the concept. He was of the view that accumulation of material things has remained a main focus of economic agents and doing so community values and community excellence are often compromised. In his speech he presented an important concept that GDP cannot be used as a measure of welfare of wellbeing of the economy because it does not take into account the health of individuals, their standard of living, quality of education provided to the individuals etc. In this way it is not a good option to rely on GDP while having an idea about the development of an economy.

-Gross Domestic Product (GDP); which measures the total market value of goods and services produced in the domestic economy during specific time period, is considered the best measure because it includes the output of all sectors of the economy.

When you look closer at what is happening in our society, it is clear that GDP growth has failed to deliver. For example, while GDP roughly doubled between 1980 and 2007, the distribution of all that money has left us more unequal today than at any time since the 1920s. GDP, in other words, tells us nothing about how national income is distributed, and it ignores the negative economic consequences of

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is an important macroeconomics indicator used to measure the performance of the economy. The basic formula for calculating the GDP is as follows:

Most people may know what gross domestic product (GDP) is. And most people think that if a country has a high GDP, it tells us the country is strong. High GDP countries’ people have higher salary, higher material life, and more economic activity. However, it does not mean that high GDP countries’ people have a better life. For example, most of high GDP countries have serious pollution problem. Therefore, they have to spend a lot of money on health care. Do they really have a better life? Also, GDP has advantages and disadvantages. GDP is only one of the methods to evaluate the quality of countries.

The Gross Domestic Product is a monetary measure of the value of all final goods and services produced. GDP estimates are commonly used to determine the economic performance of a whole country or region .It also measures economic productivity and growth, what GDP represents, has a large impact on nearly everyone within that economy. For example, when the economy is healthy, you will typically see low unemployment and wage increases as businesses demand labor to meet the growing economy. A significant change in GDP, whether up or down, usually has a significant effect on the stock market and the economy at large.

Dr. Coyle says that GDP is a measure that reflects mass production well but is not well suited to deal with an economy which is mostly dominated by a large number of varied services. But we should not abandon it in a rush. She suggests that we study three issues in order to move towards a better measure. She calls them Complexity, Productivity and Sustainability.

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.

In earlier times Gross Domestic Product was one of the main indicators to measure a country’s wealth. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is defined as the total value of all the goods and services produced by a nation in any given year ("Is the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) a Good Measure of Prosperity?"). There are two ways of calculating a country’s GDP. The first is the income approach which is calculated by adding the wages of workers, income from rent, interest and profits. The second, more common form of calculating GDP, is the expenditure approach. Here GDP totals consumption expenditure, investment, government spending and net exports. GDP statistics are considered to reflect a county’s economic output which could possibly lead to growth. However GDP is a measure of income and it should not be confused with wealth. Which is why most modern economists do not consider GDP to be a good measure of a