Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a generally accepted metric providing insight into a country's macroeconomic landscape. It is affected by many different factors including population, inflation, unemployment, technological advancement, currency purchasing power, and more. For GDP data to contribute to useful analysis and accurately identifying trends, these factors need to be considered and normalized to truly compare a country's annual data with past data and that of other countries. Real GDP removes inflation impact by normalizing all dollar amounts through a base year multiplier, while Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) controls price levels between economies by equalizing the purchasing power of currencies. When used together, real GDP and PPP are far more insightful than surface-level GDP. Interested in global macroeconomics, I created a visual model displaying data on real GDP per capita and total real GDP normalized to 2017 international dollars and using the PPP method for 20 countries. The countries represent the top 20 countries in real GDP per capita, PPP (in 2021) with a population greater than 5 million people. Unemployment and population data are also included to provide additional context.
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