Nationale inkomensrekeningen

Ever wondered how a nation keeps track of its economic health—like how much it earns, spends, and produces?

National income accounting provides a structured way to measure economic performance in monetary terms. Most governments maintain official national income accounts to monitor overall performance.

These accounts use three main approaches to measure the same economic output: the product, income, and expenditure approaches.

The product approach calculates a country’s GDP by summing the value added at each stage of production for all final goods and services. At every step in the production chain, only the incremental increase in market value is included, thus avoiding double-counting.

The income approach measures all income earned from production—such as wages, profits, rents, and interest—answering the question: Who is earning the income from this output?

The expenditure approach calculates total spending on final goods and services. It includes consumer spending, investment, government purchases, and net exports, asking, Who is doing the spending, and on what?

By analyzing all three, policymakers and economists gain a full view of economic performance, helping them design targeted p