The most common way to describe national output is to cite gross domestic product statistics. Gross domestic product represents the monetary value of all finished goods and services produced within a country’s border over a specific time period. Growing up, many of us spoke in the language of gross national product, which is a measure of what the citizens of a nation produce irrespective of whether these items are produced within its borders.
There are other measures of national output and this summer the U.S. Commerce Department will add two new sets of figures regarding economic output. The new numbers will be available on June thirtieth. As reported by writer Jeffrey Sparshott, the first new number will average gross domestic product and a measure known as gross domestic income. Both measure the overall level of economic activity, but use different underlying sources of data.
Gross domestic product uses expenditures while the other measure uses incomes. While these measures should move in the same direction, there are often discrepancies in the short-term. The other measure is called real private domestic final purchases, which actually excludes certain volatile components of output like inventories and international trade data.
