Macroeconomics Flashcards
List some organisations which forecast national economic activity.
- ESRI
- D/Finance
- Central Bank
- IMF
- OECD
- European Central Bank
- NERI
- IBEC
How do you add together a vast range of goods and services of different types?
Use monetary value.
In the private sector, use prices or incomes.
In the public sector, there is often no price or profit to use.
What is national income accounting
The bookkeeping system that a government uses to measure the level of the country’s economic activity in a given time period.
What are examples of national income accounting?
GDP
GNP
GNI*
What is the aim of national income accounting?
To get a meaningful measure or estimate of the quantity of goods and services produced in an economy in a period of time?
What is the definition of GDP?
GDP is the market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period of time
Why does Ireland’s productivity look better than it should do?
Because GDP is used
How is GNP different to GDP?
GNP excludes depreciation
What is the circular flow of income?
The concept that production generates income and incomes allows spending and spending absorbs output.
How is the actual economy more complicated than the circular flow of income?
It includes withdrawals (tax, imports and savings) and injections (Government, exports, and investment)
What are the three methods of measuring GDP?
Income
Expenditure
Output
What is the calculation for the expenditure method of GDP?
C + I + G + X - M
Why do the three methods of measuring GDP not give the same result?
Because of a lack of appropriate definitions and perfect data
When referring to the component parts of national income, what is consumption?
Spending by households on goods and services, with the exception of purchases of new housing
When referring to the component parts of national income, what is investment?
Spending on capital equipment, inventories, and structures, including household purchases of new housing (i.e. purchase of new capital)
When referring to the component parts of national income, what are Government Purchases?
Spending on goods and services by local and state governments.
Excludes transfers.
When referring to the component parts of national income, what are net exports?
Spending on domestically produced goods by foreigners minus spending on foreign goods by domestic residents.
What are technical reasons why GDP is not the best indicator of economic wellbeing?
- Real -v- nominal
- Population (GDP per capita)
- Distribution
- Exchange rates
What are the conceptual reasons why GDP is not the best indicator of economic wellbeing?
- Pollutoin
- Producing the “wrong” products
How do we measure the cost of living?
The Consumer Price Index
What is the Consumer Price Index?
A measure of the overall cost of the goods and services bought by the typical consumer
What is another example of a Consumer Price Index?
The Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices, which is compiled according to a methodology that has been harmonised across EU countries.
What is inflation?
An increase in the overall level of prices in the economy.
When does inflation occur?
Inflation occurs when the average level of prices in the economy increases over time.
List some of the causes of inflation
- excess spending
- higher labour costs
- higher profits
- increases in raw material prices
- self-fuelling
What is the process for computing CPI?
1) Fix the “basket
2) Find the prices
3) Compute the cost of the basket of goods in each year
4) Choose a base year and compute the index
5) Compute the inflation rate from previous year
What are some of the problems in computing the CPI?
- sample (average of the sample)
- small number of outlets
- range of products
- substitution bias
- introduction of new goods
- unmeasured quality change
What is the nominal interest rate?
The interest rate as usually reported without a correction for the effects of inflation
What is the real interest rate?
The interest rate corrected for the effects of inflation.
How is the real interest rate calculated?
Nominal interest rate - inflation rate
What is nominal GDP?
The production of goods and services valued at current prices.
What is real GDP?
The production of goods and services valued at constant prices.
Hhow is real GDP calculated?
Need to first calculate a base year and then use the prices in the base year to compute the value of goods and services in all the years.
What other words are used to describe nominal GDP?
current, value
What other words are used to describe real GDP?
Constant, volume
What is the GDP deflator?
A measure of the price level calculated as the ratio of nominal GDP to real GDP times 100
i.e. the current level of prices relative to the level of prices in the base year
What is inflation?
A situation in which the economy’s overall price level is rising
What is the inflation rate?
The percentage change in some measure of the price level from one period to the next.
What is economic growth?
- continuing increases in GDP
- more goods and services available to people
What pattern of growth is preferred?
An orderly or stable pattern of growth which avoids fluctuations
Why is an orderly or stable pattern of growth preferred?
Because it allows for a better use of resources, efficiency, planning and certainty
What is productivity?
The quantity of goods and services produced from each unit of labour input
What is potential GDP?
The quantity of output the economy could produce if everyone is employed.
What is actual GDP?
The actual quantity of output the economy produces
What influences potential GDP?
supply
(technology, investment, management capability, R&D, financial system, infrastructure, skills, entrepreneurial skills)
What influences actual GDP?
Demand
What are the determinants of GDP?
- Physical capital per worker (K)
- Human capital per worker (H)
- Natural resources per worker (N)
- Technological knowledge
What is physical capital per worker?
The stock of equipment and structures that are used to produce goods and services/
What is human capital per worker?
The knowledge and skills that workers acquire through education, training and experience
What is natural resources per worker
The inputs into the production of goods and services that are provided by nature e.g. land, rivers, and mineral deposits
What is technological knowledge?
Society’s understanding of the best ways to produce goods and services
What is the production function? (calculation)
Y = AF(L, K, H, N) (A = availability of technology)
What are diminishing returns?
The property whereby the benefit from each extra unit of an input declines as the quantity of the input increases.
Explain diminishing returns by reference to capital.
- Capital is subject to diminishing returns.
- The more capital an economy has, the less additional output the economy gets from an extra unit of capital.
- As a result, although higher saving leads to higher growth for a period of time, growth eventually slows as capital, productivity and income rise.
- Therefore, an increase in the saving rate leads to higher growth only for a while.
What is the catch-up effect?
The property whereby countries that start off poor tend to grow more rapidly than countries that start off rich.
i.e. small amounts of capital investment in poor countries can substantially raise workers’ productivity
What are national savings?
The total income in the economy that remains after paying for consumption and government purchases.
What are private savings?
The income that households have left after paying for taxes and consumption.
How do you represent private savings
Y - T - G
What are public savings?
The tax revenue that the government has left after paying for its spending.
How do you represent public savings?
T - G
What is a budget surplus?
An excess of tax revenue over government spending.
How is a budget surplus represented?
T – G > O
What is a budget deficit?
A shortfall of tax revenue from government spending
How is a budget deficit represented?
T – G < 0
What is investment?
The purchase of new capital.
Explain savings = investment
Savings = investment for the economy as a whole as one person’s savings can finance another person’s investment
What is Foreign Direct Investment?
An investment that is financed with foreign money but operated by domestic residents
How does FDI effect different measures of economic prosperity?
Differently
e.g. a US company is Mexico would raise GDP only a small amount by would raise GNP more.
What are financial markets
Financial institutions through which savers can directly provide funds to borrowers
What type of finance does the bond market provide?
Debt finance
What type of finance does the stock market provide?
Equity finance?
What does the bond market do
Allow firms to borrow directly from the public
What is a bond?
A certificate of indebtedness
In the bond market, what is the principal?
The amount borrowed
In the bond market, what is the date of maturity?
when the loan will be repaid
In the bond market, what is the term?
the length of time until the bond matures
In the bond market, what is credit risk
the probability that the borrower will fail to pay some of the interest or principal
In the bond market, what is tax treatment?
the way tax laws treat the interest earned on the bond
Describe the owner of a bond
- a creditor
- only gets the interest
- paid before stockholders
What is the stock market?
Sell a claim to the profits that a firm makes
What is a stock
a claim to partial ownership in a firm
What is the stock index?
monitor the overall level of stock prices e.g. Dow Jones, Industrial Average, Standard & Poor’s 500 Index
Describe the owner of the stock
- part-owner
- gets benefits of profits
- has a higher risk / return than bonds