Unit 8 introduction (economics) by Christopher Alan Walton

Section Topic: Measures of Economic Activity

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Section topic: National income statistics and alternative measures

2026spriha — 2025-02-06 08:24:44 UTC

national income statistics - statistical data used to measure nation income and output and other measures of economic performance.

Economic Activity

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Section Topic: The business cycle

2026sanvika — 2025-02-06 08:26:12 UTC

Calculations based on national income accounting

2026pranavk — 2025-02-06 08:27:49 UTC

calculating nominal GDP and real GNI using price deflator

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Economic Theory

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Measuring economic activity involves measuring the economy's national income.
Knowing about national income helps us to asses the economy's performance over time, to make comparisons of income and output performances with other firms, and establish a basis for making policies to meet economic objectives.
The expenditure approach is something that measures the total amount of spending to buy final goods and services in a country.
The income approach adds up all the income earned by the factors of production within a country over a time period (wages earned by labour, rent earned by land, interest earned by capital, profits earned by entrepreneurship)
The output approach measures the value of each good and service produced by the economy over a particular time period, then sums them up to obtain the total value of output produced.
Distinctions between GDP and GNI, nominal values and real values, total and per capita values.

Nominal GDP using expenditure approach

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-expenditure approach involves adding up the four spending components: consumption (C), Firm investment (I), government spending (G), and exports minus imports (X-M)

So, the GDP is calculated as GDP= C+I+G+(X-M).

-Nominal GDP is the value of all final goods and services at current market prices. In other words, it is the GDP calculated at the current market prices.

Calculations

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The only calculation found in this topic is to calculate GDP.

C + I + G + (X - M) = GDP

where...

C: Consumption spending

I: Investment spending

G: Government spending

(X - M): Net exports, exports minus imports

Calculating GNI

2026pranavk — 2025-02-06 08:37:30 UTC

GNI - Gross National Income

GNI=GDP + Income from abroad - Income sent abroad

GNI=GDP + net income from abroad

The value of GNI is a nominal value (not adjusted for inflation)

Short-term fluctuations and the long term growth trend or potential output

2026sanvika — 2025-02-06 08:39:34 UTC

Calculating per capita values

2026pranavk — 2025-02-06 08:44:26 UTC

Per capita means per person. To calculate a per capita value, divide the metric by the number of people. For example, real GDP per capita of a nation would be calculated by dividing real GDP with the population of the nation.

Why national income stats don't accurately measure the true value of output

2026spriha — 2025-02-06 08:44:36 UTC

GDP and GNI do not include non-marketed outputs.
A non-marketed output is the output of goods and services that is not sold in the market and does not generate any income
GDP and GNI do not include outputs sold in parallel markets including transactions involving illegal goods and services.
(underground markets)
GDP and GNI give no evaluation on the distribution of income and output.

Alternative measures of well-being

2026spriha — 2025-02-06 08:46:17 UTC

OECD better life index - a selection of factors that indicate a better lifestyle, purposed to measure a more accurate measure of wellbeing and to form the basis of policies intended to improve quality of life.

Happiness index - the goal of the happiness index is to adress the interdependent economic social and environmental challenges faced by the world. It gathers knowledge in order to encourage policies for sustainable development including UNSDGs.

Happy planet index - measure of sustainable wellbeing which takes into consideration life expectancy, peoples opinion on their personal wellbeing, which are adjusted for inequalities and ecological footprint.

HPI calculations - HPI=

(Life expectancy*wellbeing*inequality)/ecological footprint