Gdp

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The total monetary value of all finished goods and services produced within a country's borders in a specific time period ; a primary indicator used to gauge the economic health and size of a nation ; a measure that helps compare the economic performance among countries or regions
2. The aggregate market value of all final products and services generated domestically over a set period ; a key economic metric indicating the strength and growth of an economy ; a tool for assessing national productivity and living standards globally
3. The comprehensive sum of market prices for all completed goods and services made within a country in a defined timeframe ; an essential statistic reflecting economic activity and prosperity ; a basis for international economic comparisons and policy decisions

Etymology: GDP is an initialism, not a word that grew out of older English, and its story starts in the 1930s with economists trying to measure a whole nation's output at once. The idea was pioneered by Simon Kuznets, an economist working for the US National Bureau of Economic Research, who built national income accounts for Congress in the mid-1930s. The phrase "gross national product" was the term in common use for decades, and the shorter "gross domestic product" was adopted later as the standard measure, with the US and other countries shifting to it around the 1990s, when it became the headline figure in most economic reporting. The three letters stand for gross (the total, before subtracting depreciation of capital goods), domestic (produced within a country's borders, regardless of who owns the producers), and product (the value of goods and services). Because the acronym is built from ordinary English words and carries no older history, its meaning is simply the sum of those three descriptors.

Synonyms: gross domestic product, economic output