Real versus nominal value (economics)
Gross domestic product (GDP) is a measure of aggregate output. Nominal GDP in a particular period reflects prices which were current at the time, whereas real GDP compensates for inflation. Price indices and the U.S. National Income and Product Accounts are constructed from bundles of commodities and their respective prices. In the case of GDP, a suitable price index is the GDP price index. In the U.S. National Income and Product Accounts, nominal GDP is called "GDP in current dollars" (that is, in prices current for each designated year), and real GDP is called "GDP in [base-year] dollars" (that is, in dollars that can purchase the same quantity of commodities as in the base year).
System of Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting
The high level conference "Beyond GDP" in November 2007 at which Commissioner Dimas concluded that "we [The European Commission] will also need to speed up and improve the development of integrated accounting in the social and environmental spheres" increased the interest for SEEA (please consult the official web-site of Beyond GDP at http://www.beyond-gdp.eu/). The idea of Beyond GDP is to increase the use of indicators related to environment and social aspects in relation to indicators such as the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) "...to address global challenges such as climate change, poverty, resource depletion and health" (Beyond GDP web-site). In 2009 the European Commission issued a communication "GDP and beyond Measuring progress in a changing world" describing the need to complement economic indicators such as the GDP with social and environmental indicators. According to this communication, the European Commission plans to extend the existing data collection further, ready for policy analysis by 2013.