US vs. China: Measuring Real Economic Power

(23 November 2021) Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a basic measure of the overall size of a country's economy and is often used to compare different countries' economic power. But what exactly is compared when someone says that the GDP of country A is larger than the GDP of country B? The System of National Accounts (SNA) of the United Nations defines GDP as a monetary value of final goods and services — that is, what end users actually purchase — produced in a country, along with some...