IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/1208.0642.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does GDP measure growth in the economy or simply growth in the money supply?

Author

Listed:
  • Jacky Mallett
  • Charles Keen

Abstract

Gross Domestic Product(GDP) is a widely used measurement of economic growth representing the market value of all final goods and services produced by a country within a given time. In this paper we question the assumption that GDP measures production, and suggest that in reality it merely captures changes in the rate of expansion of the money supply used to measure the price data it is derived from. We first review the Quantity Theory of Money $MV=PT$, and show that the Velocity of Circulation of Money(V) does not affect the price level as claimed, as it is also a factor of the quantity of transactions(T). It then follows directly that attempts to measure total production from any form of price data as the GDP measurement does, will necessarily be confounded by the inverse relationship between prices and the quantity of production, which requires that as the total quantity of production increases, prices will drop. Finally, in support of this claim we present an empirical analysis of the GDP of nine countries and one currency union, showing that when normalized for money supply growth GDP measures have been uniformly shrinking over the last 20 years, and discuss the possible reasons for this behaviour.

Suggested Citation

  • Jacky Mallett & Charles Keen, 2012. "Does GDP measure growth in the economy or simply growth in the money supply?," Papers 1208.0642, arXiv.org.
  • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:1208.0642
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1208.0642
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Simon Kuznets, 1934. "National Income, 1929-1932," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number kuzn34-1.
    2. Ant Afonso & Ricardo M. Sousa, 2012. "The macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(34), pages 4439-4454, December.
    3. Raymond H. Lounsbury, 1931. "Velocity Concepts and Prices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 46(1), pages 34-67.
    4. repec:taf:applec:44:y:2012:i:34:p:4439-4454 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. J. Steven Landefeld & Eugene P. Seskin & Barbara M. Fraumeni, 2008. "Taking the Pulse of the Economy: Measuring GDP," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(2), pages 193-216, Spring.
    6. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson, 2007. "Disease and Development: The Effect of Life Expectancy on Economic Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(6), pages 925-985, December.
    7. Mendizabal, Hugo Rodriguez, 2006. "The Behavior of Money Velocity in High and Low Inflation Countries," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(1), pages 209-228, February.
    8. Miquel Faig & Belén Jerez, 2007. "Precautionary Balances and the Velocity of Circulation of Money," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(4), pages 843-873, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Aleksandra Pavlović & Milica Njegovan & Andrea Ivanišević & Mladen Radišić & Aleksandar Takači & Alpar Lošonc & Sebastian Kot, 2021. "The Impact of Foreign Direct Investments and Economic Growth on Environmental Degradation: The Case of the Balkans," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-21, January.
    2. Rabiul Islam & Ahmad Bashawir Abdul Ghani & Bobby Kusuma & Eric Teh Yew Hong, 2016. "An Analysis of Factors that Affecting the Number of Car Sales in Malaysia," International Review of Management and Marketing, Econjournals, vol. 6(4), pages 872-882.
    3. Rabiul Islam & Ahmad Bashawir Abdul Ghani & Bobby Kusuma & Eric Teh Yew Hong, 2016. "An Analysis of Factors that Affecting the Number of Car Sales in Malaysia," International Review of Management and Marketing, Econjournals, vol. 6(4), pages 872-882.
    4. Jason A. Hubbart & Hodjat Ghadimi, 2023. "Regional Wealth Data Acquisition and Modeling: Innovations Needed for Advancement in Sustainable Wealth in Energy-Rich Regions," Challenges, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-17, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gonzalez-Eiras, Martín & Niepelt, Dirk, 2012. "Ageing, government budgets, retirement, and growth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 97-115.
    2. Chakraborty, Shankha & Papageorgiou, Chris & Pérez Sebastián, Fidel, 2010. "Diseases, infection dynamics, and development," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(7), pages 859-872, October.
    3. Das Gupta, Monica & Bongaarts, John & Cleland, John, 2011. "Population, poverty, and sustainable development : a review of the evidence," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5719, The World Bank.
    4. Nasreen, Samia & Anwar, Sofia & Ozturk, Ilhan, 2017. "Financial stability, energy consumption and environmental quality: Evidence from South Asian economies," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 1105-1122.
    5. Alex Hollingsworth & Krzysztof Karbownik & Melissa A. Thomasson & Anthony Wray, 2024. "The Gift of a Lifetime: The Hospital, Modern Medicine, and Mortality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(7), pages 2201-2238, July.
    6. Nizar, Muhammad Afdi, 2010. "Penentuan Efek Dan Arah Kebijakan Fiskal Pemerintah Indonesia: Fiscal Impulse Measure [Fiscal Policy Stance in Indonesia : Fiscal Impluse Measure]," MPRA Paper 65603, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Karen Clay & Werner Troesken & Michael Haines, 2014. "Lead and Mortality," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(3), pages 458-470, July.
    8. Ludo Visschers & Irina A. Telyukova, 2009. "Precautionary Demand for Money in a Monetary Search Business Cycle Model," 2009 Meeting Papers 410, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2012. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(6), pages 3077-3110, October.
    10. Gabriela-Victoria Anghelache & Stela Jakova & Dumitru-Cristian Oanea, 2016. "Fiscal Policy and Capital Market Performance: Evidence from EU Countries from Central and Eastern Europe," International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences, vol. 6(2), pages 34-43, April.
    11. Louis-Philippe Beland & Abel Brodeur & Taylor Wright, 2020. "COVID-19, Stay-at-Home Orders and Employment: Evidence from CPS Data," Carleton Economic Papers 20-04, Carleton University, Department of Economics, revised 19 May 2020.
    12. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2011. "Hither Thou Shalt Come, But No Further: Reply to "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation: Comment"," NBER Working Papers 16966, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Fraser Summerfield & Livio Di Matteo, 2021. "Influenza Pandemics and Macroeconomic Fluctuations in Recent Economic History," Working Papers 210002, Canadian Centre for Health Economics.
    14. Clements, Michael P. & Beatriz Galvao, Ana, 2010. "Real-time Forecasting of Inflation and Output Growth in the Presence of Data Revisions," Economic Research Papers 270771, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    15. Huning, Thilo R. & Wahl, Fabian, 2017. "Lord of the lemons: Origin and dynamics of state capacity," Hohenheim Discussion Papers in Business, Economics and Social Sciences 22-2017, University of Hohenheim, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences.
    16. Scott, Andrew J., 2023. "The economics of longevity – An introduction," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 24(C).
    17. Jochimsen Beate & Raffer Christian, 2018. "Herausforderungen bei der Messung von Wohlfahrt," Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 67(1), pages 63-100, May.
    18. McNamara, Paul E. & Ulimwengu, John M. & Leonard, Kenneth L., 2010. "Do health investments improve agricultural productivity? Lessons from agricultural household and health research," IFPRI discussion papers 1012, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    19. Ahsan, Md Nazmul & Maharaj, Riddhi, 2018. "Parental human capital and child health at birth in India," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 130-149.
    20. Aditya Goenka & Lin Liu, 2012. "Infectious diseases and endogenous fluctuations," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 50(1), pages 125-149, May.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:1208.0642. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.