Economists use many different methods to measure how fast the economy is growing. The most common way to measure the economy is real gross domestic product, or real GDP. GDP is the total value of everything--goods and services--produced in our economy. The word "real" means that the total has been adjusted to remove the effects of inflation. The other way to measure economic growth is GDP per capita.
There are at least three different ways to measure growth of real GDP. It is important to know which is being used, and to understand the differences among them. …
