 How do we know that America’s economy is not doing well?
 What evidence to people cite when they say we’re not/are doing well?
 Where do you find credible sources to get this information?
 If you do not, make an educated guess

Chapter 24

 National Income Accounting measures the economy’s overall performance
 This allows policymakers to do the following:
 Assess the health of the economy by comparing levels of production at regular intervals
 Track the long-run course of the economy to see whether it has grown, been constant, or declined
 Formulate policies that will safeguard and improve the economy’s health

 The economy’s performance is its annual total of output of goods and services (aggregate output)
 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) defines aggregate output as the dollar value of all FINAL goods and services produced within the borders of a country during 1 year
 Would a Toyota produced in Ohio count in the United States
GDP?
 Would a furby made in China count in the US GDP?

 Everything has to be put into monetary terms in order for it to be measured
 If we simply say this year we made 3 couches and 2 computers when last year we made 2 couches and 3 computers there is no way to tell which year had greater output
 But when we say that couches were $500 and computers were $2000 we can now figure out which year was a better year

Year
2011
2012
Annual
Output
3 couches +
2 computers
Market
Value
3(500) +
2(2000) =
$5500
2 couches +
3 computers
2(500) +
3(2000) =
$7000
 Which year was better?
 GDP is of course more complicated than this since we do not just produce 2 products/services but rather billions of goods/services

 Because most manufactured goods go through stages we must avoid counting things that are used in the production of a good, and only count the final good
 You do not add the value of the wood in the pencil, rather, GDP calculates on the pencil itself
 Intermediate Goods are those purchased for resale or further processing/manufacturing
 Crude oil is the intermediate good, gasoline is a final good
 Steel beams are intermediate goods, high-rise apartments are final goods
 On your sheet of paper write some other examples

 Nonproduction (purely financial) transactions that are not included in GDP
 Public transfer payments: Social Security, welfare, and veteran’s payments that go from the government to households
 They contribute nothing to current production
 Private transfer payments: financial gifts given to people
 Stock Market transactions: buying and selling stocks is simply swapping bits of paper—nothing is PRODUCED
 Stockbrokers services DO count since it is a service
 Secondhand sales also do NOT count since they were already counted in a previous GDP cycle (used cars, etc)

 And you only have to learn one of them!
 Do NOT spend time on Income Approach
 You will be learning Expenditure Approach
 C + I + G + X n
= GDP
 What does that mean?
 We add up our economy based on how much we spent in each of those categories

 Personal consumption is all the goods/services that households buy
 Durable goods—cars, appliances, furniture, etc.
 Nondurable goods—food, clothing, etc.
 Services—lawyers, hairdressers, etc.

 This refers to the following items:
 All final purchases for machinery, equipment, and tools by business enterprises
 All construction
 Changes in inventories
 This is unsold inventory—if it was sold, it would likely fall under “C” for personal consumption
 Depreciation must be accounted for here
 Net Investment = gross investment-depreciation

 You’re not the only one who spends money
 The Government spends money on goods and services that it needs to provide public services
 Needs labor and materials to build roads
 It also spends money on providing you an education (service) and lunch (goods) at a reduced cost
 IT DOES NOT INCLUDE the money spent on transfer payments (welfare, social security, etc.)

n
 We want to exclude the goods/services that were bought here but produced elsewhere
 Likewise, we want to INCLUDE goods/services that were made here but sold elsewhere
 In other words, if you bought a book from China, it would count in China’s GDP
 If an English citizen purchased a car from the US it would count in our GDP even though it was bought by someone overseas
 Thus, we have to use the following formula when calculating Net Exports
 Net Exports = exports-imports
 In 2009 Americans spent $392 billion on imports than we made in exports (in other words, or X n
= -$392B )

 C + I + G+ X n
= GDP

 Read the provided article from CNN Money
 Summarize the article
 Analyze the article—is it accurate? How can you tell? What sources can you look at to see if they are telling the truth?
 Based on this article and your analysis—what advice to you have for Congress and the
President?

 There are other measurements we can use to see how well we are performing:
 Net Domestic Product
 National Income
 Personal Income
 Disposable Income

 Net Domestic Product (NDP) is when we look at
GDP and subtract depreciation from it
 NDP = GDP – consumption of fixed capital
(depreciation)
 It is not likely you will have to know this on the test but just in case

 How much money did we make as a country
 What we are looking at in this situation is how much money was made by Americans using their land, labor, capital and entrepreneurial talent

 Personal Income (PI) is how much money people made overall
 It does not matter if the money was earned or unearned
 In other words, transfer payments count in this category
 What were transfer payments?
 Disposable Income (DI) is how much money people made after personal taxes
 How much money you have to spend on consumption
(C) or savings (S)

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29S7FzI7s7g&f eature=share&list=PLF2A3693D8481F442

 In order to know whether we are comparing apples to apples we have to know that the value of the money we compare from one year to the next is equivalent
 The way we do this is by using a price index
 A price index measures the value of a “market basket” of one year and compares the price of that same basket to a different year
 By doing this math, you end up with an understanding of inflation

Year
2000
2012
Market Basket Value
$8000
$10000
 To calculate a price index you have to look at the price of the market basket for two years—your baseline year and the year in question
 The formula is
Price Index = $ market basket in current year x 100
$ of market basket in base year

Year
2000
2012
Market Basket Value
$8000
$10000
Price Index = $ market basket in current year x 100
$ of market basket in base year
Price Index = 10000/8000 = .80 x 100 = 80
Price Index = 80

 Real GDP (RGDP) = GDP adjusted for inflation
 The formula:
 RGDP = [nominal GDP/price index (in hundreths)] x 100
 Using our previous example if nominal GDP is $10,000
 RGDP = [10,000/80]
 RGPD = 12,500
 We can then take other years’ RGDP and compare them based on this number which provides an accurate depiction of the value of goods compared to the value of those same goods in a previous year

 Nonmarket Activities
 Your babysitting service is not likely to be counted in
GDP, neither is unpaid work
 Leisure
 Doesn’t account for the value of time off
 Underground Economy
 Black markets are not reported to the government and therefore items like drugs and weapons which should be part of GDP are not