Economic growth is the increase in the amount of the goods and services produced by an economy over time. It is conventionally measured as the percent rate of increase in real gross domestic product, or real GDP. Growth is usually calculated in real terms, i.e. inflation-adjusted terms, in order to obviate the distorting effect of inflation on the price of the goods produced. In economics, "economic growth" or "economic growth theory" typically refers to growth of potential output, i.e., production at "full employment", which is caused by growth in aggregate demand or observed output.
As an area of study, economic growth is generally distinguished from development economics. The former is primarily the study of how countries can advance their economies. The latter is the study of the economic aspects of the development process in low-income countries.
As economic growth is measured as the annual percent change of gross domestic product (GDP), it has all the advantages and drawbacks of that measure.
Read more about Economic Growth: Institutions and Growth, Human Capital and Growth, Inequality and Economic Growth, Quality of Life, Negative Effects of Economic Growth, Prominent Growth Economists
Famous quotes containing the words economic growth, economic and/or growth:
“Economic growth may one day turn out to be a curse rather than a good, and under no conditions can it either lead into freedom or constitute a proof for its existence.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“But I would emphasize again that social and economic solutions, as such, will not avail to satisfy the aspirations of the people unless they conform with the traditions of our race, deeply grooved in their sentiments through a century and a half of struggle for ideals of life that are rooted in religion and fed from purely spiritual springs.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)
“The reality is that zero defects in products plus zero pollution plus zero risk on the job is equivalent to maximum growth of government plus zero economic growth plus runaway inflation.”
—Dixie Lee Ray (b. 1924)