What Is GDP?: Services
What Is GDP?: Services
What Is GDP?: Services
Potential gdp
What Is GDP?
Gross Domestic Product measures the total output of all the goods
and services in an economy as measured by the price of those
products. Typically GDP is expressed in U.S. dollars, the world's
standard reserve currency, however, economists can measure GDP
in any currency they choose.
A bakery which sells loaves of bread for $10 a loaf and bakes 20
loaves a year;
A law firm which bills at $50 an hour and does 100 hours of
business a year;
A carpenter who sells chairs for $25 a chair and builds 10 chairs per
year;
A school that employs two teachers for $1,000 a year (the price per
year of education).
If we assume that this represents the total of all work and production
in our make-believe economy, it has the following GDP:
Services
Gross domestic product also includes services and government-
produced value. Service outputs are businesses that charge for time
or labor rather than a per-unit product, such as lawyers, doctors,
plumbers, electricians. The GDP typically (although not always)
measures them based on revenue.
It also measures many forms of government work such as teaching
or military services. This is typically calculated based on the salaries
paid to those service providers given that they create value
(protection and education create real, tangible benefits to consumers,
for example) but don't directly charge consumers for that product.
(Citizens pay for government services through taxes, but since not all
tax dollars create value, it would be inaccurate to include the
government's tax base in the GDP.)
Finished Products
Note that gross domestic product only measures final products sold
to consumers. It does not include components or intermediate
products. For example, in our study above, GDP would not measure
the value of the lumber sold to the carpenter.
Inflation/Deflation
Inflation and deflation are the processes of prices changing on the
same product from year to year either up or down respectively. For
example, take a loaf of bread that costs $10 in 2019. If that same loaf
of bread costs $11 in 2020 it has experienced inflation of 10%. If that
bread, on the other hand, costs $9 in 2020 it has experienced
deflation of 10%.
By accounting for inflation or deflation, real GDP will only grow when
an economy actually produces more and/or more valuable outputs. In
our case above, for example, real GDP would show growth in the first
situation but not in the second.
ECONOMICS MACROECONOMICS
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Net domestic product (NDP) is an annual measure of the economic output of a nation that is
adjusted to account for depreciation.
It is calculated by subtracting depreciation from the gross domestic product (GDP).
NDP, along with GDP, gross national income (GNI), disposable income, and personal income,
is one of the key gauges of economic growth that is reported on a quarterly basis by the
Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).
An increase in NDP would indicate growing economic stagnation, while a decrease would
indicate ongoing economic health.
An increase in NDP signifies growing economic stagnation, while a decrease denotes
ongoing economic health.
Special Considerations
NDP, along with GDP, gross national income (GNI), disposable income, and personal
income, is one of the key gauges of economic growth that is reported on a quarterly
basis by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).
Though GDP is frequently cited when assessing the economic health of a country,
NDP puts into perspective the pace at which capital assets degrade and must be
replaced. This is important as failure to take action would result in a decrease in the
country's GDP.