Gross Domestic Product

Economics

The total monetary value of all finished goods and services produced within a country in a specific time period.

Sources

1. United Nations Statistics Division — The System of National Accounts (SNA) unstats.un.org accessed 23 September 2026

GDP is not defined by any single authority so much as compiled under one, and the compilation standard is the System of National Accounts. The UN Statistics Division describes the SNA as “the internationally agreed standard set of recommendations on how to compile measures of economic activity”, describing “a coherent, consistent and integrated set of macroeconomic accounts in the context of a set of internationally agreed concepts, definitions, classifications and accounting rules.” The framing matters more than a one-line definition would: the SNA “provides an overview of economic processes, recording how production is distributed among consumers, businesses, government and foreign nations”, and shows “how income originating in production, modified by taxes and transfers, flows to these groups and how they allocate these flows to consumption, saving and investment.” GDP is one aggregate drawn from that system. The cited page defines the framework rather than the aggregate; for the definition of GDP itself, go to the SNA text.

What this source settles. Where a government or an intergovernmental body is cited, the page is authoritative for the regime it administers and for the figures it publishes about itself. Where a standards body is cited, the entry names the body and describes the standard’s role, but quotes nothing from a text that is sold rather than published. In every case the operative document — the Act, the order, the manual, the issue of the standard your contract names — governs over any summary of it.

Related terms

• Balance of Payments
• Credit Rating
• Current Account Deficit
• EURIBOR
• Exchange Rate
• Foreign Direct Investment

From the AJG lexicon archive (July 2026).