GDP measures have been started since the Second World War, which was used to monitor the war production level. This brings out that the definition of GDP is the final value of all goods and services produced in a country per period of time, which is the products produced within a country and those products that are sell and purchase through the market at a price where consumers willing to pay and producers willing to sell. It can also tell us how the economy is performing during four different quarter per year.
For instance, since 1955 there are several times for British economy suffered recessions (two continuous quarters of negative economic growth), which can be shown by GDP indicator (two separated period of recession):
Year and quarter
Growth of GDP% in Year, quarter
Nominal Gross Domestic Product
Real Gross Domestic Product
1980 Q1
-0.9
171,113
55,807
1980 Q2
-1.8
168,063
57,308
1980 Q3
-0.2
167,717
59,232
1980 Q4
-1.1
165,814
60,837
1991 Q1
-0.7
224,896
147,945
1991 Q2
-0.4
224,007
150,051
1991 Q3
-0.4
223,203
151,493
1991 Q4
0.2
223,735
153,913
By the table we can see that there are three different figures, which are growth of GDP(%), GDP and real GDP. From the growth of GDP, this is the rate that we can deduce whether this country is in recession(%<0) or economy boom(%>0). The difference between Nominal GDP and Real GDP is that the former is measured by the current price while the latter is measured in constant price. Real GDP is helps us to make a comparison in output across different years as