Gross Domestic Product
A short definition
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Tim Callan (from the IMF)
What is Gross Domestic Product?
"GDP measures the monetary value of final goods and
services—that is, those that are bought by the final user—produced
in a country in a given period of time (say a quarter or
a year). It counts all the output generated within the borders
of a country. GDP is composed of goods and services produced
for sale in the market and also includes some nonmarket
production, such as defense or education services provided
by the government. An alternative concept, gross national
product, or GNP, counts all the output of the residents of a
country. So if a German-owned company has a factory in the
United States, the output of this factory would be included in
U.S. GDP, but in German GNP..."
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From the OECD
The conceptual framework underlying the national accounts
"The national accounts are designed to provide a coherent and
consistent set of data for various types of economic analysis.
The major summary aggregate, GDP, provides an estimate of the
overall unduplicated production in a country’s economy. It
is an important statistic because, in the longer term, the level
of a country’s production broadly determines the amount of
goods and services which can be consumed by the country’s
inhabitants. However, while being an important indicator of a
country’s economic well-being, GDP is not necessarily a
reliable indicator of a country’s overall community welfare
or quality of life. A number of other, non-economic, indicators
such as public health, education levels, crime rates and
environmental quality would have to be taken into account in any
such measure..."
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Róbinson Rojas
Measuring National Income. The problems. Definitions
(from Macmillan Dictionary of Modern Economics, Macmillan, 1986):
"National Income: a measure of the money value of the goods
and services becoming available to the nation from economic
activity. "There are three approaches to measuring this:
1.-as the sum of the incomes derived from economic activity, these
broadly divide into incomes from PROFITS and incomes from employment;
2.-as the sum of expenditures, with the main distinction being between
expenditure on CONSUMPTION and expenditures which add to the CAPITAL
STOCK (INVESTMENT);
3.-as the sum of the products of the various industries of the nation."
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U.S. Department of Commerce:
Bureau of Economic Analysis
National and international accounts
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Commission on the Measurement
of Economic Performance and Social Progress
The Commission on the measurement of
economic performance and social progress has been created at the
beginning of 2008 on French government's initiative.
The output of the Commission will be made public, providing a template
for every interested country or group of countries.
The Commission is chaired by Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz, Columbia
University. Professor Amartya Sen, Harvard University, is Chair
Adviser. Professor Jean-Paul Fitoussi, Institut d'Etudes Politiques de
Paris, President of the Observatoire Français des Conjonctures
Economiques (OFCE), is Coordinator of the Commission. Members of the
Commission are renowned experts from universities, governmental and
intergovernmental organisations, in several countries (USA, France,
United Kingdom, India). Rapporteurs and secretariat are provided by the
French national statistical institute (Insee), OFCE, and OECD.
The Commission held its first plenary meeting on 22 - 23 April 2008 in
Paris. It is expected to give in its final report after one year.
Download
the final report of the commission ( 16 Sep. 2009)
In February 2008, the President of
the French Republic, Nicholas Sarkozy, unsatisfied
with the present state of statistical information about the economy and
the society, asked,
Joseph Stiglitz (President of the Commission), Amartya Sen (Advisor)
and Jean Paul
Fitoussi (Coordinator) to create a Commission, subsequently called “The
Commission on
the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress” (CMEPSP).
The
Commission’s aim has been to identify the limits of GDP as an indicator
of economic
performance and social progress, including the problems with its
measurement; to
consider what additional information might be required for the
production of more
relevant indicators of social progress; to assess the feasibility of
alternative measurement
tools, and to discuss how to present the statistical information in an
appropriate way.
Joseph Stiglitz, Amartya Sen and Jean-Paul Fitoussi, in
charge of the commission, have considered it useful to leave their
personal reflections. It draws extensively on the work of the
commission. This is the purpose of the document :
The Measurement of Economic Performance and Social
Progress Revisited - Reflections and Overview,
September, 16, 2009
View
videos of September 14, 2009 meeting:
Presentation
of the final report from the Commission on the Measurement Of Economic
Performance and Social Progress by Joseph E. Stiglitz, chairman of
the Commission
Christine
Lagarde's speech
Working
Papers and Reports
- Survey of Existing Approaches to Measuring
Socio-Economic Progress, Joint Insee-OECD document prepared for the
first plenary meeting of CMEPSP by (at Insee) Cédric Afsa, Didier
Blanchet, Vincent Marcus, Pierre-Alain Pionnier, Laurence Rioux, and
(at OECD) Marco Mira d'Ercole, Giulia Ranuzzi, Paul Schreyer, April
200, PDF file, 1,8 Mo
- Individual Well-Being and Social Welfare : Notes on
the Theory, Marc Fleurbaey, document prepared for the first plenary
meeting of CMEPSP, April 2008, PDF file, 364 Ko
- Minutes of the first plenary session of the Commission
on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress,
Paris, 22 - 23 April 2008 ;PDF file, 194 Ko
- Issues Paper of the Commission on the Measurement of
Economic Performance and Social Progress,July, 25, 2008 ; PDF file,
515 Ko
- Note Problématique de la Commission sur la Mesure des
Performances Economiques et du Progrčs Social,25 juillet 2008
(traduction en français de l' "Issues Paper"), PDF file, 510 Ko
- Beyond GDP : Is There Progress in the Measurement of
Individual Well-Being and Social Welfare ?, Marc Fleurbaey, August
2008, revised version of the paper "Individual Well-being and Social
Welfare: Notes on the Theory" prepared for the first plenary meeting of
CMEPSP ; PDF file, 485 Ko
- Draft Summary,Provisional summary of the
commission's work, CMEPSP, June 2009, PDF file, 489 Ko
- Report
of the commission on the measurement of economic performance et social
progress, CMEPSP, September, 14, 2009. PDF file, 3 235 Ko
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Economic Growth Resources
(University of Bristol)
Penn World Data Tables
(University of Pennsylvania)
The Penn World Table provides purchasing power parity and
national income accounts converted to international prices for 188
countries for some or all of the years 1950-2004. The European Union or
the OECD provide more detailed purchasing power and real product
estimates for their countries and the World Bank makes current price
estimates for most PWT countries at the GDP level.
International
Comparison Program
(The World Bank Group)
ICP Regional Results:
December 2007: Final results of the International Comparison
Program for Asia.
June 2007: Final results of the International Comparison
Program for South America.
March 2007: First Results of the International Comparison
Program for Africa.
Country Reports on
Economic Policy and Trade
(U.S. Government)
Institute for the
Integration of Latin America and the Caribbean
(IADB)
Research and Data
(IADB)
Development Indicators
(OECD)
Tables
presented hereby are extracted from OECD.stat, the
official online plateform to disseminate OECD statistics.
Additional data can be found in OECD.stat:
historical time series starting in 1955, zones, additional countries
and other statistical measures.
Statistics Portal
(OECD)
Central Banks on the WWW
(Bank for International Settlements)
Statistical Resources
(University of Michigan)
CIA World Factbook
(U.S. Government)
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