ABSTRACT
National income measures the money value of goods and services available to a nation from economic activity. Theoretically, it measures the production boundary of an economy. Practically, it may be interpreted as an indicator of a nation’s economic well-being. The United Nations agrees upon international standards by which national income is measured. Because the value of production is typically based on market prices, by its very definition, current measures of national income presume that the significance of a thing lays not in its nature, but in its price. When used as a yardstick for measuring well-being, it implies that every item of commerce adds to our nation’s welfare merely because it was produced and purchased.
