Gross national product (GNP) is one of many metrics economists use to measure a country’s economic output. For any one year, GNP equals the market value of all the goods and services produced by the citizens of a country, whether those goods were produced inside the country or manufactured elsewhere.Although similar, gross national product is not the same as the more frequently used gross domestic product (GDP). The difference between the two is that gross domestic product is the total of all economic output within a country’s borders without distinction between foreign or domestic ownership, while gross national product looks only at citizenship and ignores where the goods were produced. Because of this, GDP and GNP are typically close in number, but not exactly the same. In countries with many foreign investors, the GDP can be quite a bit higher than the GNP. While both GDP and GNP are important indicators of a nation’s economic productivity, the US Department of Commerce switched from using the GNP to the GDP as their primary measure of the United States’ economic wellbeing. This makes it easier to compare the US economy to other nations, as the GDP is used by the majority of countries throughout the world.