GMAT 考满分题库

     By 2014, the economy of China had outpaced that of the United States in terms of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). But what is “PPP”? Analysts define PPP as the amount of a given currency it takes to purchase goods or services—a meal or a cell phone, for example. One understanding of PPP presents it as an indicator of the relative economic strength of two or more countries. But outside economic circumstances like cost of living confound the use of PPP as a reliable indicator of economic strength. Thus, most analysts complement PPP through the use of a number of other related metrics.

     Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a more traditional measure of economic strength: the sum of all final goods and services produced in a country during a given period of time. By this metric, the economy of the United States still out-produces that of China by a substantial margin. However, aside from the fact that it doesn't account for trends over a longer term, this measurement doesn't address the economic well-being of entities or individuals below a national scale, both important indicators of general economic health. It takes the wealth of a national economy and extrapolates that to represent the wealth of the people it comprises. Thus, the major corporations doing very well in the United States—technology producers, financiers, etc.—are grouped with workers, families, and organizations that have access to substantially less capital. That GDP obscures instances of stark income inequality which suggests that, although a useful measure of the productivity of a national economy, its uses are limited for anyone looking to do comprehensive wealth analysis.