Assignment title: Information
1) The Economy cannot be considered fully employed unless the measured
unemployment rate is below 1%. Agree or disagree and explain your answer in a
paragraph.
2) A) Why would you expect the inflation rate to accelerate if the actual unemployment
rate declined to a level lower than the "full employment" unemployment rate (NAIRU)
and remained at that low level for a year or longer? Explain your answer in a few
sentences.
B) Draw an AS/AD diagram illustrating your answer to part (A). Be sure to label all lines
and axes in your diagram clearly.
3) A) Suppose Jean Splicer, an investor, buys $500,000 of shares of stock in a diversified
bundle of Bio-tech firms and exactly one year later sells those shares for $530,000.
Assume the value of the CPI at the date of Jean's purchase was 190 and rose by the sale
date one year later to 200 while the value of the GDP Deflator was 120 at the time of her
purchase and rose to 125 by the date she sold her shares. What was Jean's real rate of
return on this investment?
B) Explain why you used either the CPI data or the GDPD data in your answer to part A.
4) A) Suppose that several months of data showed the CPI increasing at a 4 % annual rate
due largely to increases in the price of energy and food related commodities following
several years when the CPI only increased by 2.2 % per year. Suppose this increase
causes investor expectations of annual inflation to also increase from 2.2% to 4%.
Assume, at the same time that fears of higher inflation create concerns that rising interest
rates will derail the economic recovery and lead to another recession. Assume the
resulting increase in risk aversion among investors drives the expected real rate of return
required to equate investor demand to the existing supply of 1 year Treasury notes down
to 0.2 % from .6%. What would you expect to happen to the nominal yields on 1-year T-
notes during the period over which these changes in inflation expectations and required
real yields occurred? (Give a numerical answer if possible) Explain your reasoning.
B) Draw a supply/demand diagram of the US Treasury bond market to illustrate the
effects on it of the developments cited in part A. (Note: you do not have to include the
exact numerical price before and after the change in expectations.) Label your diagram
clearly!
5) Between Q1, 2014 and Q1, 2015 measured Output in the non- farm business sector
increased by 3.2%. During this time period the unemployment rate fell from 6.6% to
5.5% and total hours worked in the nonfarm business sector increased by 2.8%.
What was the % rate of change in labor productivity over the year? Explain your answer
briefly.
6) Suppose that the Federal Government announced a tax rebate of $500 for all
individuals filing singly and $1000 for all families filing jointly or as head of household
in the upcoming tax year. Further, suppose that the Government budget included a broad
based reduction in Government spending on goods and services, whose total amount was
equal to the total amount of the tax rebates. What would be the overall impact on AD of
these policy changes or would the policy change effects completely cancel each other
out?
Explain your answer in detail.
.
7) The Federal Reserve open market committee, which meets once every 6-8 weeks to
discuss monetary policy met on Feb 10, 2016. Investors around the world are searching
for clues about how soon and how fast the Fed will raise interest rates. In the FOMC
report and Janet Yellen press conference following the meeting, what Aggregate Demand
and Aggregate Supply circumstances influenced the Fed's guidance on the timing of
future interest rate increases.? (Note: the Fed does not use the words Aggregate demand
and aggregate supply in its communications, but the underlying concepts very much
inform their policy decisions). 4 pts
http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/testimony/yellen20160210a.htm