Module 5: National Accounts Flashcards
Text Book
What are National income accounts?
This is an accounting framework used in measuring ‘current economic activity’
What are national income accounts based on? (what idea)
national income accounts are based on the idea that the amount of economic activity that occurs during a period of time can be measured in terms of:
- The product approach –> The amount of output produced excluding output used in intermediate stages of production
- The income approach
–> The income recieved by the producers of output - The expenditure approach
–> The amount of spending by the ultimate purchaers of output
- Each approach gives a different perspective on the economy
What is the fundamental principle underlying national income accounting?
- Expect for such problems such as incomplete or misreported data all three approaches give ‘identical’ (equivalent) measurements of the amount of current economic activity
how to calculate after-tax profit
Its revenue minus expenses (taxes, costs)
What is profit before tax
Revenue - costs (wages)
How might they ask us to use the three different approaches?
they might ask to find total value of economic activity generated by the two businesses?
What is the product approach?
This measures economic activity by :
1. Adding the market value of goods and services produced excluding any goods and services used up in the intermediate stages of production
2. The product approach computes economic activity by summing “the value added” of all producers.
What does the product approach make use of which concept?
Is it called the value-added approach?
What is the value-added approach?
Its the value added of any producer which is the value of its output minus the value of the inputs it purchases from other producers.
What do we sum up for the product approach
- We sum of the value added (output minus input –> the value of the inputs it purchases from other producers
What is the income approach?
This measures economic actiivty by adding all income received:
1. Wages
2. Taxes
3. After-tax profits
What is the expenditure approach?
it measures the activity by adding the amount spent by all ‘ultimate users’ of the output
What are the ‘ultimate users’?
Ultimate users is the businesses target audience to sell to.
It might be to another business or consumers (households)
Why are all three approaches equivalent?
- First observe that the market value of goods and services produced in a period by definition is equal to the amount that buyers must spend to purchase them. (product approach = expenditure approach)
- Also observe what the seller receives must be equal to what the buyers spend
(total income approach = expenditure approach)
- This will be shown through the seller’s receipts as it will show what the business has spent and what buyers have paid.
What is the fundamental identity of national income accounting?
Total production = total income = total expenditure
What is the ‘broadest measure of economic activity’?
This is GDP (gross domestic product)
How is a country’s GDP measured?
Its measured by:
1. The product approach
2. The expenditure approach
3. Income approach
How does the product appraoch measure GDP?
It defines a nation’s GDP as :
- The market value of final goods and services newly produced within ‘ a nation’ during a fixed period of time
What are market value?
Its the prices at which goods and services ar sold at.
What is the advantage of using market prices for when measuring GDP (using the product approach’?
it allows us to add the production of different goods and services.
- We can essentially find the total market value by multiplying each good by price and adding it up
What is the disadvantage of using market prices for when measuring GDP (using the product approach’?
A problem using market value to measure GDP is that some useful goods and services are not sold in formal markets
What are some useful goods and services that are ignored in the calculation of GDP?
- Nonmarket goods and services such as home-making and child-care services
- Actions to reduce pollution or improve environmental quality are not reflected in dp
What are some non-makret goods that are ‘partially incporated’ in official GDP?
The underground economy
What is the underground economy?
This includes both legal activities hidden from government records (avoid payment of taxes) and illegal activities (drug dealing)
What are other services that are not sold in markets but are provided by the government?
- national defence
- Education
- Police
- fire protection
What are ‘newly produced goods and services’
as a measure of current economic activity,
GDP includes only goods and services that are newly produced within the current period
Gdp excludes the purchases or sales of goods that were produced in previous periods
How can we classify goods and services?
Goods and services during a period may be classified as either intermediate goods and services and services that are final goods and services
What are intermediate goods and services?
Are those used up in the production of other goods and services in the same period that they themsleves wer produced
What are final goods and services
Are those goods and services that are not intermedate
Final goods and services are the end products of a process
What goods are counted in GDP
only final goods and services
What is a ‘capital good’?
Sometiems the distinciton between final and intermdiate goods are subtle :
Capital goods that is itself produced (not natural resources) and is used to produced other goods
However, unlike an intermediate good a capital good also is not used up in the same period that it is produced in.
What are examples of capital goods?
- Factory equipment
- Office equipment
- Factories
- office buildings
Are capital goods final or intermediate
Final goods and are included in GDP
What is another second reason fir the distinction between final and intermediate goods?
Its the treatment of inventory invstment
What is inventory?
Inventories are stocks ir unsolds goods , goods in processs and raw materials held by firms
What is inventory investment?
Its the amount by which invetories increase during the year
(difference between beginning and end inventory)
What is inventory investment treated as?
A final good and is included and a part of GDP
What is the difference between GND and GDP
The diffence cocnerns th treatment of ouput produced by capital and laour working outside its home (domestic country)
WHAT IS GNP?
GNP is the market value of final goods and servics newly produced by domestic factors of production during the current period that is produced regardless of location
What is factors of production also known as
Canadian capital and labour
Ex: When a canadian company builds roads in saudi its counted into what?
GNP
Ex: When a foreign cmpany produces clothes in Canada it is included in what?
GDP but not GNP
What are ‘net factor payments from abroad’?
This is income paid to domestic factors of production by the rest of the world minus income paid to foreign factors of production by domestic economy
What is the realtionship between GDP and GNP?
GDP+NFP = GNP
What is the expenditure approach to measuring GDP?
The expedntiure approach measures GDP as total spending on final goods and services produced ‘within a nation’ during a specified period of time
What are the four majour cateogires of soending that are added to get GDP?
- Consumption
- Invetsment
- Goverment purchaes of goods and services
- Net exports
What is the equation for the income-Expenfiture approach?
Y = C+ G+I+NX
What is consumption?
Its the spending by domestic hosuehods on final goods and services including produced abroad
Makes up of 60% of GDP in canada