GDP deflator
Nominal GDP divided by real GDP: how much everything produced in the country has gone up in price.
Formula
\text{Deflator} = \frac{\text{Nominal GDP}}{\text{Real GDP}}Both figures are taken for the same period; real GDP is expressed in the prices of a base year.
How to read the number
Its coverage is wider than a shopping basket — investment goods, government purchases and exports all sit inside it, and none of them appear on a supermarket shelf.
When the metric lies
The deflator and the consumer price index part ways regularly: a jump in export commodity prices lifts the first and barely touches the second.
Also known as: price deflator