Gross national product (GNP)
 

[CENTER][CENTER][B][FONT=Times New Roman]Gross national product (GNP)[/FONT][/B][/CENTER]
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[SIZE=3][FONT=Times New Roman]National income accounting is a set of  measures used to gauge the health of a nation's economy for a given period. One of these measures is the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The government uses GDP as the best indicator of economic health because it represents the total market value of all goods and services during a given year. Unlike the better-known Gross National Product (GNP), it omits income from overseas investment. [/FONT][/SIZE]
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[FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]The Department of Commerce in the United States started keeping national income accounts in 1947, when the economy was expanding at a very rapid rate. The total value of goods and services was expressed as GNP. In the late 1980s it became common to distinguish GDP from GNP in order to isolate purely domestic economic information from foreign growth of American-owned companies.[/SIZE][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]GDP is computed before any allowances are made for depreciation or for the consumption of capital used in the process of production. The economic measure taken after these allowances are made is called Net National Product. As a measure of economic well-being, GDP is flawed because it includes all government spending on goods and services. A more accurate indicator would be Net Private Product, a measure of the private sector only.[/SIZE][/FONT]
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