Advances in Business Statistics, Methods and Data Collection

2GDP and the SNA: Past and Present

Steve MacFeely¹ and Peter van de Ven²

¹Director of Data and Analytics, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland

²Inter‐Secretariat Working Group on National Accounts, New York, USA

2.1 Introduction

Gross domestic product (GDP) has been described as one of the greatest inventions of the twentieth century (Landefeld 2000). It is unquestionably one of the most powerful and influential statistical indicators in history. No other measure has ever had such an impact on our lives (Masood 2016). GDP is more than a statistic – it not only measures the global economy but also defines it. So important is GDP today, that Karabell (2014, p. 50) describes it as the “the Zeus of the statistical pantheon.”

Before the invention of the System of National Accounts (SNA) and GDP, one could argue that the concept of “the economy” did not exist (Karabell 2014) and so, their creation marked a seminal moment in the evolution of economic thinking and policy making (Fioramonti 2013). This chapter summarizes the origins of the SNA and GDP and some of the crucial events and thinking that helped shape what is arguably the most important statistical framework in history. It also illustrates how the concepts and measurement framework are not fixed or static but continue to evolve in parallel with the economy it is measuring.

The chapter begins by outlining the origins of national accounts and GDP – Section 2.2 details how the SNA are compiled today and notes, in ...