National Accounts Measuring Aggregate Output

Major Variables of National Accounts
The major measures of
aggregate output are:
Gross Domestic Product
Gross National Product
Net Domestic Product
Net National Product
The major measures of aggregate income are:
National Income
Personal Income
Disposable Personal
Income
The main indicators of aggregate output and aggregate income
in the economy can be found in the
National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA) System,
proposed in the late 1920s by the group of U.S. economists from NBER, headed by Simon Kuznets (Nobel prize, 1971).

total ⇒ measures aggregate output;
market ⇒ only official market transactions are included (self-made goods and shadow economy are excluded);
value ⇒ measured in money (blns of pounds, dollars, rubles);
all final goods and services ⇒ transfer payments (welfare benefits and subsidies) and financial transactions (purchases of bonds and shares) are excluded (because income is not created, but redistributed and nothing new is produced);
Gross Domestic Product
The main measure of aggregate output is gross domestic product.

Gross Domestic Product
final goods and services ⇒ in order to avoid double counting, intermediate goods (that form inputs for final product such as steel in car production or flour in baking bread) are excluded;
produced ⇒ not redistributed or resold;
within the country ⇒ i.e. in the domestic economy, no matter by what factors of production, either owned by the citizens of the country or by foreigners (goods and services produced by national factors abroad are excluded);
during a year ⇒ only newly (currently) produced goods.

Self-made production
Shadow
economy
Resold goods
Goods
produced
abroad
Subsidies
Purchases
of bonds
and shares
Production
of previous years
Transfer
payments
Non-market
activity
Intermediate
goods
Self-made goods
Items Excluded from Calculating GDP

How to Calculate GDP
The theoretical base for measuring GDP is the model of circular flows, from which we learn that aggregate output is equal:
- to the sum of expenditures;
- to the amount of aggregate income;
- to the value of aggregate product.
Incomes
Expenditures
Production

Methods for Calculating GDP
Thus there are three methods for calculating GDP:

The Value Added
By definition GDP is the total value of final goods and services. But by appearance it is often impossible to judge if a good is final or intermediate (for example, apples bought by a person or apples bought by a firm producing juice).
Thus, to calculate the value of final product economists use the concept of value added.
To learn what does value added mean and why it can be used to measure the value of final product, let’s examine the production process (for example, of bread).
Final or Intermediate?

Receipts of farmer from miller
Receipts of miller from baker
Receipts of grocer from consumer
Receipts of baker from grocer
Value added by grocer
Value added by baker
Value added by miller
Value added by farmer
$.18
$.24
$.38
$.20
$.18
$.24
$.38
$.24
$.18
$.18
$.20
$.24
$.18
$.38
Receipts on Each Stage of Production
Value added (= income created) at each stage of production
Total consumer
expenditure
= $1.00
= $.42
= $.80
Total value added =Total income created =Total consumer expenditure

The Value Added Approach
Thus, the value added of a particular firm can be calculated as:
Firm’s value added = Revenue – Value of intermediate goods
purchased from the other firms
while the total value added in the economy as a whole is:
Total value added = Value of total output (total sales) –
– Value of total intermediate product
As the value of final goods is always equal to the sum of values added on all stages of production process, GDP can be measured as the sum of values, added by all the firms in the economy or in all the branches or large sectors of the economy (such as industry, agriculture, construction, etc).
GDP = Σ values added

Financial
Market
Foreign
Sector
Import
Expenditure (Im)
The Circular Flow of Income
and Expenditure
Factor
Payments
Export
Expenditure (Ex)
Saving (S)
Government
Net
Taxes (T)
Investment (I)
Government
Expenditure (G)
Consumption
(C)

The expenditure approach sums up spending of all macroeconomic agents:
households – consumption spending C ;
firms – investment spending I ;
the government – government purchases of goods and services G ;
the foreign sector – net exports NX :
GDP = C + I + G + (Ex – Im)
NX
The Expenditure Approach

Consumption spending include expenditures made by households for:
current consumption – purchases of non-durable goods
(food, clothes, shoes, etc);
consumption of durable goods (furniture, cars,
refrigerators, TV-sets, etc) (except houses);
payments for services (hair-cuts, entertainments,
tourism, etc.).
Consumption Spending

Investment Spending
Investment spending represent expenditures made by private business firms and households to buy capital goods. It is the sum of expenditures for:
purchases of new equipment, machinery and tools;
new nonresidential construction (buildings, offices,
hotels, factories, other commercial real estate);
new residential construction (houses, cottages, flats);
inventory investment.
Purchase of securities (bonds and shares) is not considered as investment spending, because represents redistribution, not creation of output).

Inventory Investment
Three first components of investment spending form domestic private fixed investment.
Inventory investment (Iinv) represent the annual net changes in the stock of inventories.
Inventories, held by firms, include:
raw materials;
parts (or semi-finished goods);
unsold finished goods.
If the changes in inventories are positive ⇒ I↑ ⇒ GDP↑.
If the changes in inventories are negative ⇒ I↓ ⇒ GDP↓.
Example
⇒ Iinv = + $20 ⇒ increase in GDP by $20
⇒ Iinv = – $30 ⇒ decrease in GDP by $30
Inventory investment =
= Production – Sales

Composition of Investment Spending
Purchases of
new durable equipment
New non-residential construction
New residential construction
Fixed private domestic investment
Private domestic investment
Inventory investment

Investment spending are divided into:
gross investment (Igross);
replacement investment (= depreciation = capital consumption allowances A): during production process capital wears out and must be replaced or repaired;
net investment (Inet).
Igross = A + Inet
Net investment is the base for increase in capital stock and thus in the productive possibilities of the economy.
Gross and Net Investment

6
Gross Investment
4
Replacement Investment
2
Net Investment
Change in Capital Stock = + 2
The Role of Net Investment

Government spending consist of the government sector’s
purchase of goods and services.They include expenditures on:
goods purchased to run government and the military (including purchase of investment goods for public enterprise and infrastructure and in order to produce public goods);
payments to government employees (civil servants, teachers, firemen) and the military for their personal services;
and exclude transfer payments (welfare social benefits and subsidies, as they result from redistribution of previously received funds).
Government spending can be divided into:
government consumption – the purchase of consumer goods and payments to government employees;
government investment – the purchase of investment goods.
Government Spending

Imputed Value
It is a national accounting rule to calculate GDP by adding the market prices of all final goods and services, produced within the economy…
but there are some final goods and services, that are parts of total output, but are not sold and bought in the market.
The value of items that have no market value and are not traded in the market, but must be included in total output and income is called the imputed value.
Examples:
some government services that enter GDP at their costs;
rental payments that are paid by house owners to themselves.

Net Exports
All the countries in our days are open economies, i.e. economies transacting with other countries (with the rest of the world). One of the major links between economies is international trade. Countries sell (export) domestically produced goods and services to the foreign countries and buy (import) goods and services produced abroad.
The value of domestic production that is sold to other countries is called gross exports (Ex).
The value of foreign production that is purchased by the domestic economy is the country’s gross imports (Im).
The balance between gross exports and gross imports is called net exports (NX).

Domestic Economy
Foreign Economy
The Diagram of Net Exports
Domestic Goods and Services
Foreign Goods and Services
Payments for Domestic Goods and Services (Ex)
Payments for Foreign Goods and Services (Im)
Flow of Money
Flow of Goods and Services

How Imported Goods Are Registered
Goods and services produced abroad are bought by all domestic macroeconomic agents (households, firms and government), thus they are parts of correspondingly consumption spending C, investment spending I and government purchases of goods and services G). Hence:
C = CD + CF; I = ID + IF and G = GD + GF.
Because gross domestic product includes the value of only domestically produced goods and services, then in order to calculate GDP, we must subtract the value of all imported goods and services, and add the value of all domestically produced production bought by foreigners:
GDP = (CD + CF ) + (ID + IF) + (GD + GF) + Ex – Im
Im
Therefore, imported production is excluded from the value of GDP, but in national accounts is registered twice.

The Expenditure Approach
Consumption Spending
(C)
Investment
Spending (I)
Government
Spending (G)
Net
Exports
(NX)
Structure of US GDP, 2011
71.2% 12.3% 20.3% -3.8%
Structure of Russian GDP, 2011
50.3% 23.3% 17.7% 8.7%

The Income Approach
The income approach makes use of the fact that expenditures on GDP ultimately become income.
Thus, GDP represents the total sum of factor incomes, earned by the owners of economic resources, i.e. households. It consists of:
wages and salaries, earned by workers of private firms;
rental payments, earned by land and estate owners (including imputed rental payments for housing services, enjoyed by house owners);
interest payments, earned by capital owners;
profits, earned by entrepreneurs and firms’ owners.
The sum of income earned by the factors of production owned by a country's citizens is called National Income (NI) or National Income at factor costs:
NI = Wages + Rents + Interest + Profits

Interest Payments
According to U.S. national accounts interest payments is called “net interest”.
Net interest = interest paid by firms – interest received by firms + interest received from the rest of the world – – interest paid to the rest of the world
%%

The Types of Profits
In accordance with the existing forms of business organization, national accounts distinguish two types of profits:
proprietors’ income, i.e. profits of firms, possessed by one owner (single proprietorship) or several joint owners (partnership), who themselves manage the firm make all the decisions and are personally responsible for all of the firm’s actions and debts;
corporate profits, i.e. profits of firms in which ownership and financial responsibility are divided, limited, and shared among any number of shareholders. Such type of firms is called corporations.
One part of corporate profits is paid to government in the form of corporate taxes, and the rest sum is divided into two parts:
distributed profits – the part which is distributed to shareholders as dividends;
undistributed profits – the part not distributed to shareholders and retained by the firm (also called retained earnings).

The Structure of Profits
Profits
Proprietors’ Income
Corporate
Profits
Undistributed Profits (retained earnings)
Distributed Profits (dividends)
Corporate
Profit Taxes

The Structure of Factor Payments
The dominant factor of production is labor. The share of labor income in National Income in industrialized countries occupies more than 2/3 of all factor payments (≈ 70% in the U.S.). Most of the remainder goes to pay capital. Only a small amount goes for other factors of production or true profits.
Payments to Labor

From National Income to GDP
National Income must be modified slightly to arrive at GDP.
We must add components that are necessary for calculating aggregate output, but not included in National Income as they do not become income for suppliers of productive resources:
depreciation, because these expenses capture the value of output needed to replace or repair worn out buildings and machinery;
indirect taxes (sales taxes, value-added taxes, customs duties, license fees, and so on), because they are part of the expenditure on goods and services and are included in prices;
factor income of foreigners received for the use of their economic resources in the country, whose GDP is calculated.

From National Income to GDP
At the same time we must subtract from NI elements that are not part of GDP:
subsidy payments made by the government to firms (farmers, for example) that are part of the farmers' income but are not made in exchange for goods or services;
factor income of the citizens of the country abroad, because NI includes the income of all citizens everywhere whereas GDP includes the value of goods produced domestically by anyone.

The Factor Income from Abroad
Income of foreigners received
within the country
Income of the citizens of the country
abroad
Net Foreign Factor Income
Net Factor Income from Abroad
Net Foreign Factor Income
Net Factor Income from Abroad
=
–
Income of foreigners received
within the country
Income of the citizens of the country
abroad
–
=
=
–
Factor income includes:
labor income (= compensation of employees);
property and entrepreneurial income (= investment income from the ownership of financial assets, i.e. interest on short- and long-term capital, dividends, rent, etc).

The Income Approach: A Summary
In summary,
GDP = NI + Depreciation + Indirect taxes - Subsidies -
- Net factor income from abroad
or
GDP = NI + Depreciation + Indirect taxes - Subsidies +
+ Net factor income of foreigners
All the approaches for calculating GDP (expenditure, income and value added) must give the same result.

Gross National Product
Gross National Product (GNP) is the total market value of all final goods and services produced within a year by factors of production owned by the citizens of that country.
It doesn't matter where the output is actually produced: in the domestic economy or abroad.

GDP versus GNP
He adds to:
Gross Domestic Product of Germany
Gross National Product of Italy
works in Germany
Italian worker
Thus,
GNP = GDP + net factor income from abroad
or
GNP = GDP - net factor income of foreigners
Hence, GNP can be greater or less than GDP, depending on whether the citizens of the country earn more or less abroad than foreigners earn in this country.

Net Domestic and Net National Product
Net Domestic Product (NDP) = GDP – Depreciation
Net National Product (NNP) = GNP – Depreciation
or Net National Product = National Income + Net Indirect Taxes
that is why NNP is often called national income at market prices.
NNP characterizes productive potential of the economy for the next year because it is free from depreciation and includes only net investment.

National Income
National Income = NNP – Net Indirect Taxes =
= NNP – Indirect taxes + Subsidies
National Income (NI) (or national income at factor costs) is the money income earned by households for the factor services. It is the sum of factor payments, made to households by private firms.
NI = Wages + Rents + Interest + Profits

Personal Income
Personal income (PI) is the money income received by households before personal income taxes are subtracted.
PI = NI – Contributions for social insurance – – Corporate profits + Personal dividend income + + Government and business transfers – Net interest + + Personal interest income
(Not all national income is distributed to persons. Some of the corporate profits are retained by firms. Similarly, not all interest payments paid by firms go to persons: some go to banks, some go abroad.)

Disposable Income
Disposable income (DI) is the money income which is at the disposal of households and which they can use as they like. It is an after-tax personal income.
DI = PI – Personal income taxes
Disposable income is used by households for consumption spending (C) and saving (S):
DI = C + S
Part of the disposable income that is not spent for consumption is called personal (or household) saving:
S = DI – C

National Income Accounting: A Summary
GNP
at market
prices
C
GDP
at market
prices
NNP
at market
prices
Net Factor
Income from
Abroad
National
Income =
NNP
at factor
costs
Wages
and
Salaries
I
G
NX
Net Factor
Income from
Abroad
Depreciation
Indirect
Taxes
Interest
Income
Profits
Rental
Income

GDP as an Indicator of the True Level of National Output
Being the major measure of aggregate output, GDP can’t serve the exact indicator of the actual level of production in the economy.
Official GDP statistics do not provide a complete accounting of economic activity, because do not include the value of:
underground or illegal economic activities;
household work and production;
bartered goods.

GDP as the Indicator of the Welfare and the Well-being
GDP and GNP can’t serve the exact indicators of societal well-being.
An increase in these measures might reflect an increase in the standard of living, but GDP and GNP:
also increase with expenditures on natural disasters, deadly epidemics, war, crime, and other detriments to society;
do not include non-market activity and self-made production;
do not reflect the impact of externalities, either positive (“goods”) or negative (“bads”), such as
deterioration of environment, changes in leisure
time, the level of medical care and education,
the length of life, the crime situation, noise, etc;
do not capture the change in product quality.

Net Economic Welfare
This indicator to estimate economic well-being was proposed in 1972 by two prominent U.S. economists
James Tobin (Nobel prize,1981) and William Nordhaus.
Net Economic Welfare =
= GDP + Value of «Goods» – Value of «Bads»

Nominal GDP versus Real GDP
Nominal GDP is GDP measured at current prices. The size of nominal GDP is influenced by two factors:
changes in the size of physical volume of production;
changes in prices (level of inflation).
In order to measure the true change in output economists use real GDP.
Real GDP is GDP measured with constant prices.
Real GDP is nominal GDP corrected for inflation.
Real GDP =

Example
Imagine, that the economy producers only bananas.
In 2011 the real GDP decreased
while the nominal GDP increased due to the increase in prices.

If economy produces a great number of goods
(n goods, for example), then the value of
Nominal GDP versus Real GDP
Nominal GDP = current year prices × current year quantities
the value of
Real GDP = base year prices × current year quantities =
where and are the prices for good i correspondingly in the current (t) year and in the base (0) year;
and are the quantities of good i produced correspondingly in the current (t) year and in the base (0) year.

Nominal and Real GDP in Russia, 1995-2010
Source: Goscomstat

Price Indexes
The measures of general price level are:
Consumer Price Index – CPI;
Producer Price Index – PPI;
GDP Deflator.
Price indices are used to measure inflation and
adjust nominal values for inflation to find real values

The Consumer Price Index
is based on the prices of items in a fixed representative "market basket" of hundreds of final goods and services used by typical urban consumers in a base year;
is the government's gauge of inflation in the US;
is considered to be the best measure of the cost of living;
is used, for example, to adjust tax brackets and social security payments and wages for inflation (i.e. indexation);
is calculated as Laspeyres index, i.e. fixed basket (base year) quantities index:
CPI =

The Producer Price Index
is based on the prices of items in a fixed "market basket" of hundreds of intermediate (or wholesale) goods (such as lumber and steel) used by producers during a production process in a base year;
is calculated as Laspeyres index, i.e. fixed basket (base year) quantities index, so the PPI is similar in calculation to the CPI;
differs from CPI, because:
- includes raw materials and semifinished goods;
- is designed to measure prices at an early stage of
a distribution system;
- is constructed from prices at the level of the first
(not final) significant commercial transaction;
the PPI is sometimes a good predictor of future inflation (since producers often pass their cost increases on to consumers).

The GDP Deflator
The Gross Domestic Product Deflator is an alternative general price index that reflects the importance of products in current market baskets (current year quantities), rather than in base year market baskets (base year quantities), which become less relevant over time.
GDP Deflator =
GDP deflator is calculated as Paasche index.

In order to convert any year's nominal GDP
(or any other nominal figure)
into real GDP
(or any other corresponding real figure),
one must use the formula
From Nominal GDP to Real GDP

CPI versus GDP deflator

How to Measure Inflation
Inflation is a sustained increase in the overall price level. An increase in the price of one good or several goods is not necessarily inflation. There must be an increase in the general price level (P) between two years – current (t) and previous (t-1). The key measure is the rate of inflation (π):
The rate of inflation (π) =
The most frequently used measures of price level are CPI and the GDP deflator.

Nominal GDP in year t = Price Level in year t × Real GDP in year t
YNt = Pt × YRt
If inflation is low (< 10%), the relationship between nominal GDP, real GDP, and the inflation rate (π) is:
Changes in Nominal GDP (in %) = Changes in Real
GDP (in %) + Changes in the Overall Price Level (in %)
ΔYNt (in %) = YRt (in %) + πt
Example. Suppose during a year nominal GDP increased by 7%, while the rate of inflation by the end of the year appeared to be 4%. It means that the growth of real GDP was only 3% (7% – 4% = 3%).
Nominal GDP, Real GDP and Inflation
The GDP deflator implies a simple relation between nominal GDP (YN) and real GDP (YR) for each year (year t):
or

Actual and Potential Real GDP
But annual (short-run) output can deviate from output that can be produced if all the economic resources are fully employed (long-run output).
The first one is called actual real GDP and is used to measure the changes in real from year-to-year output (i.e. business cycle fluctuations).
The second one is called potential (or natural) real GDP and is used to to estimate the changes in productive possibilities of the economy (i.e. the trend of economic growth).
To measure changes in quantities, i.e. physical amount of output, only real GDP can be used.

Actual versus Potential Real GDP
Actual real GDP (Y)
Short run period.
Measures changes in the annual (year-to-year) output.
Is a characteristic of
business cycle.
The level is determined by the desire of economic agents to buy produced goods and services,
i.e. by aggregate demand.
Potential real GDP (Y*)
Long run period.
Measures changes in the
productive possibilities.
Is a characteristic of
economic growth.
The level is determined by the amount and productivity of resources (labor and capital) and the existing technology,
i.e. by production function.
Real GDP
TREND
Y (actual GDP)
Y*(potential GDP)
Peak
Trough
Peak
Trough
Recession
Expansion
Time (years)

The Business Cycle
The business cycle is the fluctuations in the economic activity, the periodic rise and fall in real output.
In general, there are four phases of the business cycle.
Expansion – a period where real GDP is growing.
Peak – the top of the cycle where an expansion has run its course
and is about to turn down.
Contraction (or recession) – a period where real GDP is falling.
A prolonged and deep recession is called a depression.
Trough – the bottom of the cycle where a contraction has
stopped and is about to turn up.

US Business Cycle: Fluctuations in Total Production Relative to the Long-run Growth Trend

The GDP Gap
The deviation of actual real GDP (Y) from its potential level (Y*) is known as the GDP (or output) gap.
GDP gap = Potential GDP – Actual GDP = Y* – Y
The GDP gap may be:
positive, when actual real GDP is below its potential level; it is the period of recession; this type of gap is called the recessionary GDP gap;
negative, when actual real GDP exceeds its potential level;
it is the period of expansion (or boom); this type of gap is called the inflationary GDP gap; the economy in this case is called an overheated economy.

Recessionary versus Inflationary GDP Gap

Behavior of Macroeconomic Variables During the Business Cycle

The Rate of Growth
The rate of growth (g) is an important macroeconomic variable that is used to measure the annual percentage changes in the level of economy’s output, i.e. in actual real GDP (Y) in a given year (year 2 or more generally year t) relative to the previous year (year 1 or more generally t –1), that allows to estimate if economic activity is declining or expanding.
or more generally
Periods of positive GDP growth are called expansions.
Periods of negative GDP growth are called recessions.

Growth Rates of Real GDP Across the Countries
2003-2010 (%)
Source: World Bank and OECD Economic Outlook

Growth Rates of Real GDP in Russia, 1996-2010
Source: Goscomstat

How to Measure the Standard of Living
The best measure for the productive potential of the economy is real GDP.
But it is not the exact variable to estimate the living standard and the well-being of each citizen, because the population growth rate may be higher than that of real GDP.
So the best measure for the standard of living is thought to be real GDP per capita.
But real GDP per capita is not the ideal measure of personal economic well-being, because it doesn’t include the changes:
in the distribution of income;
in leisure time enjoyed by the typical person;
in the impact of externalities;
in product quality, etc.

Standards of Living Worldwide, 2010
Source: CIA – The World Factbook