GDP - Gross Domestic Product

The gross domestic product (GDP) or gross domestic income (GDI) is a basic measure of a country's overall economic performance. It is the market value of all final goods and services made within the borders of a country in a year. It is often positively correlated with the standard of living,[1] though its use as a stand-in for measuring the standard of living has come under increasing criticism and many countries are actively exploring alternative measures to GDP for that purpose.[2] GDP can be determined in three ways, all of which should in principle give the same result. They are the product (or output) approach, the income approach, and the expenditure approach. The most direct of the three is the product approach, which sums the outputs of every class of enterprise to arrive at the total. The expenditure approach works on the principle that all of the product must be bought by somebody, therefore the value of the total product must be equal to people's total expenditures in buying things. The income approach works on the principle that the incomes of the productive factors ("producers," colloquially) must be equal to the value of their product, and determines GDP by finding the sum of all producers' incomes

Resources:

1. Sullivan, arthur; Steven M. Sheffrin (1996). Economics: Principles in action. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 074589: Pearson Prentice Hall. pp. 57, 305. ISBN 0-13-063085-3. http://www.pearsonschool.com/index.cfm?locator=PSZ3R9&PMDbSiteId=2781&PMDbSolutionId=6724&PMDbCategoryId=&PMDbProgramId=12881&level=4. 
2. French President seeks alternatives to GDP, The Guardian 14-09-2009.
   European Parliament, Policy Department Economic and Scientific Policy: Beyond GDP Study [1]
3. World Bank, Statistical Manual >> National Accounts >> GDP - final output, retrieved October 2009.
   "User's guide: Background information on GDP and GDP deflator". HM Treasury. http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/data_gdp_backgd.htm. 
   "Measuring the Economy: A Primer on GDP and the National Income and Product Accounts" (PDF). Bureau of Economic Analysis. http://www.bea.gov/national/pdf/nipa_primer.pdf.