The meaning, the measurement, and the use of GDP
In this lecture of Economics for Everyone, we begin our discussion of macroeconomics, the study of the overall level of economic activity.
The lecture offers some background and motivation by examining the sharp increase and sluggish fall of the unemployment rate during the 1930s, the Great Depression. This led to a crisis in economic thinking, and to the publication of John Maynard Keynes’s “General Theory”. Thus macro-economics was born.
Our first challenge involves a host of measurement issues, and in this lecture we examine the meaning, the measurement and the use of Gross Domestic Product. This statistic is nicely presented, reviewed, and evaluated in Diane Coyle’s book, GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History, and it is the major reading on your list for this lecture.
Download the presentation for Lecture 8, “The Meaning and Measurement of Macroeconomic Activity” as a pdf, and if you like listen to narrated version.
Economics for public policy 