Episode Summary An economy grows by two percent, but the average citizen actually gets poorer. In this episode, John and Jane kick off their economics season by untangling Gross Domestic Product (GDP). They explain why a growing population can make headline growth numbers highly misleading, track down where your unpaid household labor disappears in the national accounts, and look at why a destructive natural disaster can paradoxically make the country's economic scorecard look better.

Key Concepts

• The GDP Definition: The total market value of all final goods and services produced within a country’s geographic borders in a given period. It is calculated by adding household consumption, business investment, government spending, and net exports (exports minus import ...