Skip to main content

Previous

The economics of pubs

Next

The pandemic, inequality and the ‘Great Gatsby curve’

QUANTITATIVE SKILLS

Real and nominal measurements

An important concern of the economist is to be able to monitor the performance of an economy through time. Peter Smith explores some of the issues involved

Perhaps the most important way in which we try to evaluate the performance of an economy is through economic growth. The wellbeing of the residents of an economy depends partly (but not exclusively) upon the resources available to them, and if we are looking to see whether wellbeing is improving through time, we need to be able to monitor whether the availability of resources is increasing as time goes by.

One common measure of resource availability is gross domestic product (GDP), or gross national income (GNI). GDP can be calculated in one of three ways — namely, as the sum of incomes, output or expenditure.

Your organisation does not have access to this article.

Sign up today to give your students the edge they need to achieve their best grades with subject expertise

Subscribe

Previous

The economics of pubs

Next

The pandemic, inequality and the ‘Great Gatsby curve’

Related articles: