Assignment 1: Your Recession Strategy

Suppose that you are the chief economic advisor to the president of the United States. You are asked to propose a strategy to bring the economy out of recession. Unemployment is at 13 percent and inflation is relatively low. Your goal is to avoid an increase in inflation and bring the economy to full employment as rapidly as possible.

Applying the principles of the Keynesian model, what specific economic policies would you propose to accomplish these goals? What do you believe would be the short- and long-term effects of your policies on both inflation and unemployment rates? Provide justification and examples to support your conclusions. 

By Friday, January 25, 2013, post your initial discussion response

Assignment 2: LASA 1: Inflation and Government Economic Policies

Inflation is a measure of how prices have changed over time.  If prices are changing due to inflation, each dollar spent will buy less.
In order to answer the questions below, go to the following website: http://www.bls.gov/cpi/

Questions:

1.  What is inflation? What are the causes of inflation?  Is inflation desirable and what can be done to control inflation in a market economy?
2. What is the Consumer Price Index (CPI)?  How has the CPI behaved since the year 2000?  What have been the causes of these changes? In your response, include a graph of the CPI for this period and cite your source.
3. What is the Producer Price Index (PPI)?  How has the PPI behaved since the year 2000?  What have been the causes of these changes? In your response, include a graph of the PPI for this period and cite your source.
4. What is the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CE)?  How has the Survey behaved since the year 2000?  What have been the causes of these changes? In your response, include a graph of the CE for this period and cite your source.
5. What do the measures above tell us about consumer behavior?  Have incomes changed enough to offset the inflation since 2000?  What can we predict about future inflation?
6. What are the implications of these measures for government economic policies?

By Wednesday, January 30, 2013, create a Microsoft Word file to collate your answers

Complete the following readings early in the module:

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• Inflation and the Phillips curve
• Fiscal policy and public finance
• Politics, deficits, and debt