Measures Of Economic Performance 2.1 Flashcards
What is GDP?
- Gross Domestic Product
- value of all goods and services produced in a country in one year
- does not include earnings by its residents whole outside the country
What is GNP?
- Gross national product
- Economic activity of the nationals of a country irrespective of where they are in the world
- GDP plus income paid into the country by other countries for such things as interest and dividends
Give the equation for GNP:
- GNP = GDP + net income from abroad
What is NDP?
- net domestic product
Net = gross - depreciation
What is depreciation in the terms of capital goods?
- the decrease in value of capital goods
GDP contains capital goods (machines) while…
NDP does not
How is GDP measured?
- By adding up all of an economy’s incomes (wages, interest, profits and rents)
Or - Adding up all expenditures (consumption, investment, government spending and next exports)
Or - The value of all goods and services produced within a country
- Income = Expenditure = Value of output
What is the equation for nGDP?
- rGDP x P
What is nominal GDP?
- Total of goods and services consumed + government expenditures investments and exports minus total imports
- GDP that does not take into account inflation, just figures
What is Real GDP?
- inflation-adjusted measure that reflects the value of all goods and services produced by an economy in a given year
- more accurate when calculating over time
What does gross mean?
- when everything is taken into account
What does net mean?
- after you’ve accounted for depreciation ( of capital goods)
How is GDP per capita measured?
- by dividing total gdp (total gdp produced by a country) by the population
What is GNP?
- gross national product
- the total market value of all goods and service produced by domestic residents (GDP) plus income that residents have received from abroad, minus income claimed by non-residents
What is purchasing power parity?
- exchange rates derived from the same cost of a basket of goods in different countries
GDP is published on a…
- rolling monthly basis
(Every month, on the past three months) - prelimary estimates in the first then revised each month as new data is obstained, also published annually.
What is recession?
- two consecutive quarters of negative growth (contraction)
- it is not possible to define the economy as in recession from a preliminary estimate (ONS - no)
How do you calculate GDP adjusted for PPP?
- divide GDP by the corresponding PPP
- removes price level differences between countries
Why is economic growth measured accurately?
- its growth is an indicator of the success of current economic polices and guide to the future ones
Are preliminary estimates accurate?
- yes compared to the final quaterly GDP
- estimate upwards a
Standard of living does not just refer to income but also…
The quality of life and economic welfare
Why might GDP not be a good measure of living standards in terms of how it is produced?
- Working hours (how long did it taker to produce)
- Working conditions (pleasant or unpleasant experience)
- Produced in a way that produces negative externalities (I.e air pollution in Dehli) or positive externalities
(Working conditions affect productivity)
Why might real gdp not be a good measure of living standards in terms of what is produced?
- frivolous/merit/demerit goods
- main government spending on infrastructure vs frivolous spending - goods which stop us from being sad (military) vs goods which make us happy (entertainment)
- quality of the goods produced
Why might GDP per capita be a bad measure of living standards?
- ignores income distribution
Why might gdp be a bad measure of living standards in terms of preservation?
- how much of it is preserved as wealth (housing stock/infrastructure)
GDP may increase other problems alongside economic growth such as:
- pollution
- congestion
- stress levels
All leading to worsening living standards
GDP does not include:
- improving quality of technological goods
- unofficial or unpaid work (value of goods that are consumed by producers rather than traded)
What is the easterlin paradox?
- the idea that happiness does rise with average incomes but only up to a point
- beyond this point marginal gains in happiness fall, perhaps because people care about relative as well as absolute incomes
How has the ONS responded to issues with living standards being measured with gdp?
- measuring national well being
What is inflation??
- sustained general rise in prices across an economy
How is inflation calculated?
- compile basket of goods (by sending out a compulsory expenditure survey annually (only used for RPI))
- collect prices for each good (fill out a price survey monthly - 150-200 prices record per good)
- assign weights to each goods (using expenditure survey)
- calculate weighted index
What is the equation for inflation?
• Inflation = (Σ ( price index * weights ) of each product ) - 100
How do you calculate weighted index?
Price index * weights
How do you calculate price index?
- Price Index = Price Level
- Nominal/real (same year)
What is CPI?
- consumer price index
- international comparable methodology
- representative of the entire population living in the country
- geometric mean (lower)
- no survey- look at calc from GDP
- when people give money
What is RPI?
- retailer price index
- different in different countries
- removes extremes (i.e old pensioners) ( expenditure patterns are too different and can skew data)
- more representative of how the medium person spends
- basket of goods come from surveys
- arithmetic mean (higher)
- when they receive money
What is disinflation?
- rate of prices going up has decreased
- contraction in inflation
What is deflation?
- decrease of prices
What is core inflation?
- the remaining inflation when governments strip out volatile goods
How do you convert a raw number to an index?
- raw number/base year raw number *100
What are the consequences of inflation?
- erodes value of earnings leading to a breakdown in the medium of exchange function of money
- erodes value of savings leading to a breakdown in the store of value function of money
- creates uncertainty which can turn to de-stabilising feedback loops - hyperinflation, low investment, wage/price spiral and breakdown in the functions of the price mechanism
- menu costs (cost incurred by businesses to update their prices)
- shoe leather costs (the time & effort spent by consumers in searching for the best price)
- loss of price competitiveness for an economy
What are four benefits of inflation?
- signals that resources are fully utilised
- allows negative real interest rates
- redistribute wealth from savers to borrowers (rich v poor, public debt) by eroding the value of debt
- permits the psychological illusion of progress whilst correcting excess supply in labour markets. People want to earn more each year creating cost push inflation if output does not go up proportionately.
How is cost push inflation caused?
- AS curve shits upwards
- price of factors of production increase
How is demand pull inflation caused?
- shift of AD right
What are the main macroeconomic objectives of a government?
- to improve the living standards of the citizens in a matter that is
-
sustainable in the long run and equitable so that all citizens benefit
Whilst providing a stable macroeconomic environment in the short run by ensuring that there is - steady real economic growth, low unemployment, controlled inflation and an equilibrium in the balance of payments
What do demand side policies have a primary affect on?
- AD
- typically these policies afffect the economy in the short-medium term
What do supply side policies have a primary affect on?
- AS
- medium-long term
What does fiscal policy manage?
- ## Government spending and revenues
What does monetary policy manage?
- the price (interest rate) and quantity of money in an economy
What do supply side policies manage?
- the rules that determine the incentives and framework within which economic activity is conducted
Monetary policy attempts to achieve…
Macroeconomic objectives by manipulating the price (interest rates) and/or quantity of money (supply) in an economy (AD)
Who is monetary policy managed by?
- the Bank of England
If interest rate increases, what effect will this have on consumers?-
- savings will increase
- interest payments on mortgages & existing loans increases
- house prices and financial asset prices will decrease
- this leads to less income available for consumption -> decrease in consumption
- AD decreases and inflation goes down
If interest rate increases what impact will this have on businesses?
- interest payments on existing loans will increase
- costs of new loans to fund investment will increase
- retained profits will decrease
- leading to a decrease in investment + AD
- decrease in inflation
If interest rate increases what impact will this have on the exchange rate?
- export prices will increase - decrease in export qty
- import prices will decrease - increase in import qty
- (X-M) decreases and AD decreases
- inflation decreases
How does quantity easing work?
- The central banks creates electronic money and buys government bonds in the secondary market (from commercial banks) e.g the Bank of England created £375bn in the aftermath of the financial crash
(Impact on supply of loans) - This has the effect of increase the liquidity of commercial banks
- This encourages commercial banks to lend (as there is an increase in confidence to the increase in cash) and the supply of loans in the credit markets increases (S1 to S2)
(Impact on demand for loans) - Simultaneously, bond prices in secondary markets to increase with the increased demand for bonds
- As a result bond yields go down
- Commercial interest rates tend to be benchmarked against bond yields so they go down
- This encourages consumers and firms to borrow
(Impact on Economy) - In this way, QE encourages both the supply and demand for loans which in turns stimulates AD and inflation