The main measure of an economy’s output is GDP, or gross domestic product, the total value of all goods and services produced for final sale in an economy. It can roughly be viewed as the result of multiplying the number of hours people spend working by the value of the output produced in each hour. (Earlier in my career it was called gross national product, but that term has gone out of style. The distinction between the two lies in the treatment of foreign manufacturers operating in a given country: GDP includes them in that country’s output, while GNP does not.)
