PRINCIPLES OF MACRO: The Macroeconomic Environment V2 Flashcards
Introduction to Macroeconomic Issues and Ideas: An Overview of Key Macroeconomic Issues
Define Macroeconomics
Macroeconomics examines various issues affecting whole economies (the economy on an aggregate level).
Introduction to Macroeconomic Issues and Ideas: An Overview of Key Macroeconomic Issues
What are the major macroeconomic issues?
- Economic growth
- Unemployment
- Inflation
- Economic relationships with the rest of the world
- The financial well-being of individuals
- Businesses and government
- The relationship between the financial system and the economy
Introduction to Macroeconomic Issues and Ideas: An Overview of Key Macroeconomic Issues
What does Economic Growth describe?
Economic growth is the term economists use to describe the change in the level of an economy’s output from period to period. The rate of economic growth measures the percentage change in output. This is usually measured over short periods, such as 12 or 3 months.
Introduction to Macroeconomic Issues and Ideas: An Overview of Key Macroeconomic Issues
What is one of the most important observations of economic growth? Give an example.
Volatility
Introduction to Macroeconomic Issues and Ideas: An Overview of Key Macroeconomic Issues
Economic growth is argued to have “twin” characteristics. What are they?
Short-term rates of growth but positive long-term growth.
Introduction to Macroeconomic Issues and Ideas: An Overview of Key Macroeconomic Issues
What are the Short-term rates of growth characteristics?
Fluctuating growth in real GDP from quarter to quarter of year to year. Consistent with the concept of the inherent instability of the economy.
Introduction to Macroeconomic Issues and Ideas: An Overview of Key Macroeconomic Issues
What are the differences between Nominal and Real figures?
Nominal figures are measured in the actual prices occurring at the time of measurement. Measured at current prices.
Real figures adjust for changes in prices and, hence, for inflation. Measured at constant prices.
Introduction to Macroeconomic Issues and Ideas: An Overview of Key Macroeconomic Issues
Define nominal GDP
The market value of the final production of goods and services within a country in a given period using that year’s prices (also called “current prices”).
Introduction to Macroeconomic Issues and Ideas: An Overview of Key Macroeconomic Issues
Define real GDP
Nominal GDP adjusted for changes in the price level, using prices from a base year (constant prices) instead of “current prices” used in nominal GDP; real GDP adjusts the level of output for any price changes that may have occurred over time.
Introduction to Macroeconomic Issues and Ideas: An Overview of Key Macroeconomic Issues
Define current prices
The prices at which goods are sold in a nation in a particular year; current prices are used when calculating nominal GDP.
Introduction to Macroeconomic Issues and Ideas: An Overview of Key Macroeconomic Issues
Define constant prices
The prices from a base year that are used to calculate real GDP in other years; this allows for a more accurate measure of how a country’s actual output changes over time, because using constant prices cancels out any changes in the price level between years.
Introduction to Macroeconomic Issues and Ideas: An Overview of Key Macroeconomic Issues
What is the main difference between nominal and real values?
The main difference between nominal and real values is that real values are adjusted for inflation, while nominal values are not. As a result, nominal GDP will often appear higher than real GDP. This calculation shows how much a change in the base year’s GDP relies upon changes in the price level.
Introduction to Macroeconomic Issues and Ideas: An Overview of Key Macroeconomic Issues
Why do we need to calculate real GDP?
Real values measure the…
1. Purchasing power net of any price changes over time.
- The real GDP determines the purchasing power net of price changes for a given year.
- Real GDP accounts for inflation and deflation.
- It transforms the money-value measure from nominal GDP into an index for the Economy’s quantity of total output.
Introduction to Macroeconomic Issues and Ideas: An Overview of Key Macroeconomic Issues
What are the main problems from nominal GDP?
The nominal GDP figure can be misleading when considered by itself, since it could lead a user to assume that significant growth has occurred, when in fact there was simply a jump in a country’s inflation rate.
Introduction to Macroeconomic Issues and Ideas: An Overview of Key Macroeconomic Issues
How is real GDP calculated?
The figures are derived by a process known as chain linking. Real GDP is calculated by dividing nominal GDP over a GDP deflator.
Introduction to Macroeconomic Issues and Ideas: An Overview of Key Macroeconomic Issues
Explain the process of chain linking.
Involves taking GDP values in consecutive pairs of years (e.g. 2020 and 2021) and re-calculating the more recent of the two years (2021) as if prices in the previous year (2020) had continued to prevail.
You can then calculate the percentage change between this re-calculated GDP number and GDP in the previous year. This then gives you an estimate of the volume change in percentage terms between this pair of years (e.g. the % change in the volume of production/consumption between 2020 and 2021).
By doing so you will have a data series that represents percentage changes in volumes from year to year.
Finally, choose a particular year known as the reference year, (e.g. 2019, and apply the volume changes (percentage changes) both forwards and backwards to the nominal GDP value for this year. This creates a quantity measure in value terms at constant reference year prices (e.g. at constant 2019 prices).
Introduction to Macroeconomic Issues and Ideas: An Overview of Key Macroeconomic Issues
What does an increase in real GDP imply?
An increase in real GDP means that aggregate demand has risen faster than the rate of inflation and therefore the economy is experiencing growth.
Introduction to Macroeconomic Issues and Ideas: An Overview of Key Macroeconomic Issues
If general price levels are rising which is greater: the growth of nominal GDP or the growth of real GDP?
Nominal GDP is GDP evaluated at current market prices. Therefore, nominal GDP will include all of the changes in market prices that have occurred during the current year due to inflation or deflation.
Introduction to Macroeconomic Issues and Ideas: An Overview of Key Macroeconomic Issues
What is a sign of volatility?
The most common way of showing economic volatility is through the annual rates of growth of real (constant-price) GDP, i.e. the annual percentage changes in real GDP.
Introduction to Macroeconomic Issues and Ideas: An Overview of Key Macroeconomic Issues
What are the signs of inherent instability that characterises the macroeconomic environment
Short-term growth rates illustrate volatility and Fluctuating growth rates generate business cycles.
Introduction to Macroeconomic Issues and Ideas: An Overview of Key Macroeconomic Issues
Define GDP
Gross Domestic Product is the values of output produced within a country, typically a 3-month or 12-month period.
Introduction to Macroeconomic Issues and Ideas: An Overview of Key Macroeconomic Issues
What type of goods does GDP use and exclude?
GDP focuses on final goods and services (those purchased by a final user). It excludes intermediate goods and services (those used up in the process of making something else).
Introduction to Macroeconomic Issues and Ideas: An Overview of Key Macroeconomic Issues
What is the exception to the rule that intermediate goods and services are excluded from GDP?
The exception is when intermediate goods and services are exported overseas.
Introduction to Macroeconomic Issues and Ideas: An Overview of Key Macroeconomic Issues
Why are the terms national output and national income used interchangeably?
National output generates national income.
