GDP measures the market value of all the final goods and services produced in a country during a certain period. It is the most important measure of the economy’s output and economic activity. It is also used to compare the level of economic prosperity in different countries. The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) releases new GDP data every quarter. The BEA publishes GDP for the nation as a whole, as well as by state, metropolitan area, county, and U.S. territory.
GDP is a statistic that gets widely used in discussion of the economy, but it is important to remember that it does not tell us what is actually going on in a country’s society and economy. It does not tell us how many people are employed, the quality of work they do, the amount of time they spend with their families, or the depletion of natural resources.
It is also important to note that GDP does not account for all spending by a country. Expenditures on intermediate goods and services, such as auto parts that are used by a car manufacturer to produce a finished automobile, are counted in GDP but not in expenditures on the final product. This can distort the growth rate of a country’s GDP because it gives false encouragement to businesses that want to increase their output by purchasing expensive equipment and laying off workers.
It is possible to adjust GDP numbers for inflation and compare them over time using real or “chained” GDP statistics. The BEA produces such numbers for the entire nation and for states, metropolitan areas, counties, and territories as part of its National Income and Product Accounts data set. The BEA also rescales GDP numbers using a new base year periodically to ensure that aggregate growth rates remain comparable over time and across countries. The rescaling is done by updating the implicit weights that are applied to various components when forming regional and income group aggregates.