gross national income
/ GNI, jee-en-eye /
If gross national product looks at what a country's people produce wherever they are, gross national income looks at the same thing from the money side: what a country's people earn wherever they earn it. The two are, for practical purposes, the same total seen from two angles, and modern statistical systems prefer the name gross national income, or GNI.
GNI equals GDP plus the income residents receive from the rest of the world minus the income paid to the rest of the world. The flows it captures are wages of citizens working abroad, profits and dividends from foreign investments, and interest received from abroad, set against the same items flowing out. If a country has GDP of 1000 and receives 60 in net income from abroad, its GNI is 1060. International organisations such as the World Bank classify countries as low, middle, or high income largely by GNI per capita, because it reflects the income actually available to a country's residents rather than just activity inside its borders.
GNI matters most when a country's economy is deeply linked to the rest of the world. For a place with large foreign debts, much of its domestic production may flow out as interest to foreign lenders, so GNI can sit well below GDP and gives a truer picture of national income. For a place whose citizens own lots of assets abroad, GNI can sit above GDP. Watching the gap between GDP and GNI is a quiet way to see how connected a country is to the global economy, and who ends up with the money.
The World Bank groups economies into income brackets mainly by GNI per capita, not GDP, because GNI better reflects the money actually flowing to a country's residents after foreign-owned profits and overseas earnings are netted out.
GNI per capita is the World Bank's main income classifier.
GNI is the income-side twin of GNP; the small numerical difference between them comes only from how taxes and subsidies on production are treated, not from any difference in idea.