when is gni useful 
for nations like the us there is little difference between gdp and gni the difference between income received versus payments made to the rest of the world does not tend to be significant for some countries however the difference is significant gni can be much higher than gdp if a country receives a large amount of foreign aid as is the case with east timor conversely it can be much lower if foreigners control a large proportion of a country s production as is the case with ireland a low tax jurisdiction where the european and u s subsidiaries of a number of multinational companies nominally reside the bottom linegross national income gni is the total income earned by a country s people and businesses even if it was earned outside the country it s a measure of national wealth that can be used as an alternative to gross domestic product gdp to calculate gni add income from foreign sources to a country s gdp for many countries there isn t much difference between gni and gdp however if a country receives significant foreign investment or foreign aid gni may be much higher than gdp 