Gross national product

Gross National Product (GNP) is the market value of all products and services produced in one year by labor and property supplied by the residents of a country. Unlike Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which defines production based on the geographical location of production, GNP allocates production based on ownership.

GNP does not distinguish between qualitative improvements in the state of the technical arts (e.g., increasing computer processing speeds), and quantitative increases in goods (e.g., number of computers produced), and considers both to be forms of "economic growth".

GNP vs. GDP
Gross National Product (GNP) is often contrasted with Gross Domestic Product (GDP). While GNP measures the output generated by a country's enterprises (whether physically located domestically or abroad) GDP measures the total output produced within a country's borders - whether produced by that country's own firms or not.

When a country's capital or labour resources are employed outside its borders, or when a foreign firm is operating in its territory, GDP and GNP can produce different measures of total output. In 2009 for instance, the United States estimated its GDP at $14.119 trillion, and its GNP at $14.265 trillion.

Use
The United States used GNP as its primary measure of total economic activity before 1991, when it began to use GDP. In making the switch, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) noted both that GDP provided an easier comparison of other measures of economic activity in the United States and that "virtually all other countries have already adopted GDP as their primary measure of production."