Read about GDP and how we measure it.Key pointsThe size of a nation’s economy is commonly expressed as its gross domestic product, or GDP, which measures the value of the output of all goods and services produced within the country in a year.*GDP is measured by taking the quantities of all final goods and services produced and sold in markets, multiplying them by their current prices, and adding up the total. GDP can be measured either by the sum of what is purchased in the economy using the expenditures approach or by income earned on what is produced using the income approach.The expenditures approach represents aggregate demand (the demand for all goods and services in an economy) and can be divided into consumption, investment, government spending, exports, and imports. What is produced in the economy can be divided into durable goods, nondurable goods, services, structures, and inventories.To avoid double counting—adding the value of output to the GDP more than once—GDP counts onl...
