VCU Business

How do economists measure changes in economic activity over time when prices for the goods and services we buy are also changing? This video introduces the concepts of real and nominal variables to explain how we control for price changes.

Now that we understand the difference between real and nominal variables, we'll explore how to convert from one to the other and discover how they are related to overall changes in the price level, what we call "inflation".

Gross Domestic Product is probably the most widely used measure of overall economic activity. This video will describe three different approaches that economists can use to calculate GDP, all of which ultimately yield the same result.

To gain insight into the overall health of an economy, economists often look at various measures of labor market activity. In this video, we introduce three commonly used labor market statistics and explain what information each provides about the economy.

You might be surprised to learn that there is not just one single "unemployment rate". In fact, economists have developed numerous ways of measuring unemployment that differ based on how people respond to surveys about their employment status, and who is included in each statistic.