Question

Year Nominal GDP Real GDP GDP Deflator (Dollars) (Base year 2016, dollars) 2016 2017 2018 From 2017 to 2018, nominal GDP , and real GDP. The inflation rate in 2018 was.
Why is real GDP a more accurate measure of an economy's production than nominal GDP?

Answer 1

Answer:

Explanation:

The Real GDP is defined as the Nominal GDP minus the inflation effect.

Real GDP provides a more accurate picture of economic growth than nominal GDP because it uses constant prices, making comparisons between years more meaningful by allowing for comparisons of the actual volume of goods and services without considering inflation.

Let's say you bought apples at 5dollars per pound in 2015. Imagining a country of 1000 people and considering everyone bought a pound apples and only apples in that year, the GDP comes out to be 1000*5 = 5000 dollars.

Now let's say inflation rate is 10 percent in 2016 which will increase the price to 5.5 dollars per pound. Also, in one year, 10 more people were added to the country (No of births - No of deaths = New people in that year), this brings out total population to around 1010.

Also, let's say that the sale of apples remained the same, so the GDP of 2016 comes out to be 1000*5.5 = 5500 dollars.

That's a whooping 10% increase in GDP, right?

But here the catch.

The GDP increased not because the demand increased, but because the price of the good increased.

If we see at previous year's price (Not considering the inflation, also called Real GDP), the GDP is same which is 5000 dollars.

So, in reality, there isn't any increase in GDP.