Macro Economic Aggregates

Measuring National Gross Domestic Product

Output and National

Final Goods and Services
Exclusion of Used Goods and Paper

Income
Transactions
Exclusion of Output Produced Abroad by
Domestically Owned Factors of Production

Calculating GDP
The Expenditure Approach
The Income Approach

Nominal versus Real GDP

Calculating Real GDP
Calculating the GDP Deflator
The Problems of Fixed Weights

Limitations of the GDP Concept

GDP and Social Welfare
The Informal Economy
Gross National Income per Capita
national income and product accounts Data collected and published by the
government describing the various components of national income and output
in the economy.
Gross Domestic Product

gross domestic product (GDP) The total market value of all final goods and
services produced within a given period by factors of production located within
a country.

GDP is the total market value of a country’s output. It is the market value of all
final goods and services produced within a given period of time by factors of
production located within a country.

Final Goods and Services

final goods and services Goods and services produced for final use.

intermediate goods Goods that are produced by one firm for use in further
processing by another firm.

value added The difference between the value of goods as they leave a stage
of production and the cost of the goods as they entered that stage.
In calculating GDP, we can sum up the value added at each stage of
production or we can take the value of final sales. We do not use the value
of total sales in an economy to measure how much output has been
produced.
Exclusion of Used Goods and Paper Transactions

GDP is concerned only with new, or current, production. Old output is not
counted in current GDP because it was already counted when it was produced.

GDP does not count transactions in which money or goods changes hands but
in which no new goods and services are produced.

Exclusion of Output Produced Abroad by Domestically Owned Factors

of Production

GDP is the value of output produced by factors of production located within a

country.

gross national product (GNP) The total market value of all final goods and
services produced within a given period by factors of production owned by a
country’s citizens, regardless of where the output is produced.
Calculating GDP

expenditure approach A method of computing GDP that measures the total

amount spent on all final goods and services during a given period.

income approach A method of computing GDP that measures the income—

wages, rents, interest, and profits—received by all factors of production in
producing final goods and services.
The Expenditure Approach

There are four main categories of expenditure:

Personal consumption expenditures (C): household spending on consumer

goods

Gross private domestic investment (I): spending by firms and households

on new capital, that is, plant, equipment, inventory, and new residential
structures

Government consumption and gross investment (G)

Net exports (EX − IM): net spending by the rest of the world, or exports
(EX) minus imports (IM)

GDP = C + I + G + (EX − IM)

 TABLE 6.2 Components of GDP: The Expenditure Approach
Billions of Dollars Percentage of GDP
Personal consumption expenditures (C) 11,119.5 70.9
Durable goods 1,218.8 7.8
Nondurable goods 2,563.0 16.3
Services 7,337.7 46.8
Gross private domestic investment (l) 2,059.5 13.1
Nonresidential 1,616.6 10.3
Residential 382.4 2.4
Change in business inventories 60.6 0.4
Government consumption and gross 3,063.6 19.5
investment (G)
Federal 1,214.2 7.7
State and local 1,849.4 11.8
Net exports (EX – IM) −566.7 −3.6
Exports (EX) 2,179.7 13.9
Imports (IM) 2,746.3 17.5
Gross domestic product 15,676.0 100.0
Note: Numbers may not add exactly because of rounding.
Personal Consumption Expenditures (C)

personal consumption expenditures (C) Expenditures by consumers on

goods and services.

durable goods Goods that last a relatively long time, such as cars and
household appliances.

nondurable goods Goods that are used up fairly quickly, such as food and
clothing.

services The things we buy that do not involve the production of physical
things, such as legal and medical services and education.
Gross Private Domestic Investment (I)

gross private domestic investment (I) Total investment in capital—that is,

the purchase of new housing, plants, equipment, and inventory by the private
(or nongovernment) sector.

nonresidential investment Expenditures by firms for machines, tools, plants,

and so on.

residential investment Expenditures by households and firms on new houses

and apartment buildings.

change in business inventories The amount by which firms’ inventories

change during a period. Inventories are the goods that firms produce now but
intend to sell later.

Change in Business Inventories

GDP = Final sales + Change in business inventories

Gross Investment versus Net Investment

depreciation The amount by which an asset’s value falls in a given period.

gross investment The total value of all newly produced capital goods (plant,
equipment, housing, and inventory) produced in a given period.

net investment Gross investment minus depreciation.

capitalend of period = capitalbeginning of period + net investment

Government Consumption and Gross Investment (G)

government consumption and gross investment (G) Expenditures by

federal, state, and local governments for final goods and services.

Net Exports (EX − IM)

net exports (EX − IM) The difference between exports (sales to foreigners of
U.S.-produced goods and services) and imports (U.S. purchases of goods and
services from abroad). The figure can be positive or negative.
net national product (NNP) Gross national product minus depreciation; a
nation’s total product minus what is required to maintain the value of its capital
stock.

TABLE 6.4 GDP, GNP, NNP, and National Income, 2012

Dollars
(Billions)
GDP 15,676.0
Plus: Receipts of factor income from the rest of the world +774.1
Less: Payments of factor income to the rest of the world −537.0
Equals: GNP 15,913.1
Less: Depreciation −2,011.4
Equals: Net national product (NNP) 13,901.7
Less: Indirect business tax −68.5
Equals: National income 13,833.2
The Income Approach

national income The total income earned by the factors of production owned
by a country’s citizens.

compensation of employees Includes wages, salaries, and various

supplements—employer contributions to social insurance and pension funds,
for example—paid to households by firms and by the government.

proprietors’ income The income of unincorporated businesses.

rental income The income received by property owners in the form of rent.

corporate profits The income of corporations.

net interest The interest paid by business.

TABLE 6.5 National Income, Personal Income, Disposable Personal Income,
and Personal Saving
Dollars
(Billions)
National income 13,833.2
Less: Amount of national income not going to households −430.8
Equals: Personal income 13,402.4
Less: Personal income taxes −1,471.9
Equals: Disposable personal income 11,930.6
Less: Personal consumption expenditures −11,119.5
Personal interest payments −172.3
Transfer payments made by households −168.1
Equals: Personal saving 470.8
Personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income: 3.9%
disposable personal income or after-tax income Personal income minus
personal income taxes. The amount that households have to spend or save.

personal saving The amount of disposable income that is left after total
personal spending in a given period.

personal saving rate The percentage of disposable personal income that is

saved. If the personal saving rate is low, households are spending a large
amount relative to their incomes; if it is high, households are spending
cautiously.
Nominal versus Real GDP

current prices The current prices that we pay for goods and services.

nominal GDP Gross domestic product measured in current prices.

weight The importance attached to an item within a group of items.

 Calculating Real GDP

TABLE 6.6 A Three-Good Economy

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)
GDP in GDP in GDP in GDP in
Year 1 in Year 2 in Year 1 in Year 2 in
Production Price per Unit Year 1 Year 1 Year 2 Year 2
Year 1 Year 2 Year 1 Year 2 Prices Prices Prices Prices
Q1 Q2 P1 P2 P1 × Q1 P1 × Q2 P2 × Q1 P2 × Q2
Good A 6 11 $0.50 $0.40 $3.00 $5.50 $2.40 $4.40
Good B 7 4 0.30 1.00 2.10 1.20 7.00 4.00
Good C 10 12 0.70 0.90 7.00 8.40 9.00 10.80
Total $12.10 $15.10 $18.40 $19.20
Nominal Nominal
GDP in GDP in
year 1 year 2

base year The year chosen for the weights in a fixed-weight procedure.

fixed-weight procedure A procedure that uses weights from a given base year.
Calculating the GDP Deflator

Policy makers not only need good measures of how real output is changing but
also good measures of how the overall price level is changing.

The GDP deflator is one measure of the overall price level.

The Problems of Fixed Weights

The use of fixed-price weights does not account for the responses in the
economy to supply shifts.

The fixed-weight procedure ignores the substitution away from goods whose
prices are increasing and toward goods whose prices are decreasing or
increasing less rapidly.
Limitations of the GDP Concept

GDP and Social Welfare

If crime levels went down, society would be better off, but a decrease in crime
is not an increase in output and is not reflected in GDP.

An increase in leisure is also an increase in social welfare, sometimes

associated with a decrease in GDP.

Most nonmarket and domestic activities, such as housework and child care, are
not counted in GDP even though they amount to real production.

GDP also has nothing to say about the distribution of output among individuals
in a society.
EC ON OMIC S IN PRACTICE

Green Accounting

Recently many economists and policy makers have become concerned about
the exclusion of one particularly large and important nonmarket activity from the
national income accounts: the environment.

The market goods that many industries produce go into the national income
and product accounts, but the environmental costs of air pollution are not
subtracted.

Recent work by Nick Muller, Robert Mendelsohn, and Bill Nordhaus estimates
that including properly valued air pollution in the national income and product
accounts as an offset to the value of the marketed goods produced by some
industries would make their contribution to our nation’s GDP negative!
The Informal Economy

informal economy The part of the economy in which transactions take place
and in which income is generated that is unreported and therefore not counted
in GDP.