Research Paper on:
American Economic Growth and Productivity

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
on final goods and services are the components that make up most of the economic productivity. This economic productivity can be expressed in several ways; gross national product and  the consumer price index. MEASURES OF PRODUCTIVITY Gross National Product is a broader aggregate than consumer goods, so any price index for gross national product is going  to be broader than the consumer price index. Because gross national product is a larger composite than consumption goods, gross national product could be going up while the average  household is consuming fewer goods, because investment or net foreign or government spending might account for the rise in gross national product. This is the reason we must be  careful in interpreting gross national product movements. When figuring the gross national product only the final goods or final sales are accounted for and not intermediate goods. Intermediate goods  are those that are sold to be further processed into final goods (Stokes PG). Another component of gross national product is the product of the government sector. The  product of the business sector is its sales of final product, measured in dollars. In order to determine the product originating in the government sector, the value of the  product is defined as equal to governments compensation of employees, or the wages and salaries paid to government workers. Government agencies at the local, state and federal level hire  employees to produce services. Since these services are not sold in the marketplace it is difficult to place a value on them. For this reason they are valued  at the wages and salaries paid to the people who produce the services. They may be worth more or less than this amount depending on how useful people view