Open Source Software Economic Development

Economic Development?

How is economic development measured?

Public Comments

1. djf
2. GDP
3. Currently economic development is measured primarily as output per capita, using the national income accounting system. GNP or GDP per capita is the basic measure. The Gross National Product of a country is an estimate of the market value of all the goods and services produced in a given period (usually a year). This can be measured by counting the price of all goods and services sold, or by counting the value of all the factors that went into producing the goods and services sold. The economy is circular: the price paid for a good or service goes to pay the factors that produced it: Labor earns wages; capital earns interest; land earns rent; and entrepreneurship earns profit. Thus we can add up all the earnings of the factors of production, and that will (theoretically) equal the cost people pay for all the goods and services produced.
4. The previous answers are deceiving. Economists decipher between growth and development. You can have growth without development, but you cannot have development without growth. Development is usually measured by the Human Development Index or other measures of birth/death stats, literacy, health, education, etc. GDP may do if you are in an undergrad class.. but upper classes (in my school) were sure to distinguish between the two.