ECON 209 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Aggregate Demand, Production Function, Shortage

Hello, could you please assist with this discussion question for the Economics course? Thank you.

5) Go to the internet and find an article that discusses the problems of income inequality in the U.S. economy, summarize key points, and post in the Discussions area.

http://neweconomics.org/2014/12/why-inequality-is-an-economic-problem/

Why Inequality Is An Economic Problem

Rising economic inequality was a major driver of the financial crisis. With the OECD recently debunking ‘trickle-down’ economics, our new report sets out the links between inequality, the growth in scale and influence of the financial sector, and the dangers for financial stability.

A fragile recovery

A return to growth in economies such as the UK and USA has been welcomed as a sign of recovery from the 2008 financial crisis. But as GDP picks up, so too has the widening gap between rich and poor.

The crisis may be over for the wealthy but the aftermath for ordinary workers depressed wages and growing debt is only getting worse.

Most nations have mustered only negligible growth and this has failed to benefit the vast majority of those nation's populations.

In the seven years following the crash, the UK has suffered the longest sustained decline in real wages since records began.

This decline hasn't has been shared equally across the income spectrum latest annual data up to the end of 2013 shows real earnings for the top 10% increasing by 3.9% and a 2.4% fall for the remaining 90%.

Households are once again piling on risky personal debt at a rate of almost $1billion a year.

Globally, wealth grew by 8.3% last year to $263 trillion, even as living standards stagnate for the majority. Income inequality has seen a sharp return the top 1% of earners have reaped 95% of the USA's economic gains since the crash.

Inequality increases as economies are financialised

Over the past four decades, financial sectors have been extensively deregulated and have expanded enormously as a result, particularly in the UK and USA.

This deregulation produced two systemic outcomes: finance has been freed to become the motor of the economy while the pursuit of greater equality of citizens, as was the focus after the second world war, has been abandoned.

Instead, the notion that unrestrained pursuit of wealth would trickle-down from rich to the poor has been embraced in the mainstream political and economic arenas.

Financial markets, products, and firms now play a much larger role in many areas; from pensions and social insurance to homes and public infrastructure.

Privatization and the doctrine of maximizing value for shareholders have increased the amount of economic activity focused on extracting the largest possible short-term profit. These trends are referred to collectively as ‘financialisation’.

Until now the connections between this increasing prevalence of financial activities and the steady increase in economic inequality have not been clear. But when these two trends reached a boiling point in the mid-2000s they fuelled a global collapse of financial systems.

The polarization of wealth and incomes fed asset bubbles, risky financial activity,, and necessitated vast levels of household debt – resulting in the 2008 financial crash. With little done since to address these interconnected drivers, the threat of another crisis is very real.

This diagram lays out the seven indicators of economic instability, each fuelled by rising inequality and increasing financial sector activity:

Our report describes how these indicators laid the path for the 2008 crash, and threaten to do the same again:

Increasing inequality depresses demand since consumption levels depend more on the wages of those at the lower end of the income scale than the profits of the wealthy

In the face of stagnating wages, households rely increasingly on debt to maintain their lifestyles with rising asset prices, especially in residential housing, worsening this.

Financial liberalization allows money to flood into countries with trade deficits, such as the USA and the UK, providing the funds for debt-led consumption.

Snowballing wealth at the top increases risky financial speculation.

Inequality doesn't bring growth, it brings economic instability

In recent years there has been a marked slowing of growth across the world's wealthiest economies, with none returning to the growth trends experienced before the crisis. Many have begun to speculate that this stagnation could, in fact, be a permanent development meaning that wealthy economies are fundamentally unable to create enough demand to keep growing.

The mainstream political consensus has for decades now suggested that inequality is a price worth paying for economic growth.

But new research from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows definitively that this inequality/growth trade-off is false adding to a growing body of research showing that inequality actually prevents economies from growing. This points to a fundamental structural flaw in the economy: if the proceeds of growth are not shared, the pie stops growing.

The pursuit of higher returns for the already wealthy within this dwindling pie cannot persist forever. With wealth refusing year on year to trickle down, debt has been used to plug the wage-consumption gap for the rest.

The signals are showing quite plainly that this pursuit of growth, via inequality, is ineffective and unsustainable.

1.The classical theory of inflation

A. Is also known as the quantity theory of money.

B.was developed by some of the earliest economic thinkers.

C.is used by most modern economists to explain the long-run determinants of the inflation rate.

D.All of the above are correct.

2.To explain the long-run determinants of the price level and the inflation rate, most economists today rely on the

A.quantity theory of money.

B.price-index theory of money.

C.theory of hyperinflation.

D.disequilibrium theory of money and inflation.

3.When the price level rises, the number of dollars needed to buy a representative basket of goods

A.increases, and so the value of money rises.

B.increases, and so the value of money falls.

C.decreases, and so the value of money rises.

D.decreases, and so the value of money falls

4.The supply of money is determined by

A.the price level.

B.the Treasury and Congressional Budget Office.

C.the Federal Reserve System.

D.the demand for money.

6.Economic variables whose values are measured in monetary units are called

A.dichotomous variables.

B.nominal variables.

C.classical variables.

D.real variables.

7.Economic variables whose values are measured in goods are called

A.dichotomous variables.

B.nominal variables.

C.classical variables.

D.real variables.

7.The classical dichotomy refers to the idea that the supply of money

A. is irrelevant for understanding the determinants of nominal and real variables.

B.determines nominal variables, but not real variables.

C.determines real variables, but not nominal variables.

D.is a determinant of both real and nominal variables.

8.According to the classical dichotomy, when the money supply doubles, which of the following also doubles?

A.the price level

B.nominal wages

C.nominal GDP

D.All of the above are correct.

9.Monetary neutrality implies that an increase in the quantity of money will

A.increase employment.

B.increase the price level.

C.increase the incentive to save.

D.not increase any of the above.

10.The velocity of money is

A.the rate at which the Fed puts money into the economy.

B.the same thing as the long-term growth rate of the money supply.

C.the money supply divided by nominal GDP.

D.the average number of times per year a dollar is spent.

11.If M = 4,000, P = 1.5, and Y= 6,000, what is velocity?

A.2.25

B.3.00

C.6.50

D.None of the above is correct.

12.According to the assumptions of the quantity theory of money, if the money supply increases by 5 per cent, then

A.nominal and real GDP would rise by 5 per cent.

B.nominal GDP would rise by 5 per cent; real GDP would be unchanged.

C.nominal GDP would be unchanged; real GDP would rise by 5 per cent.

D.neither nominal GDP nor real GDP would change.

13.The inflation tax refers to

A.the revenue a government creates by printing money.

B.higher inflation which requires more frequent price changes.

C.the idea that other things the same, an increase in the tax rate raises the inflation rate.

D.taxes being indexed for inflation.

14.The inflation tax falls most heavily on

A.those who hold a lot of currency and accounts for a large share of U.S. government revenue.

B.those who hold a lot of currency but accounts for a small share of U.S. government revenue.

C.those who hold little currency and accounts for a large share of U.S. government revenue.

D.those who hold little currency but accounts for a small share of U.S. government revenue.

15.The claim that increases in the growth rate of the money supply increase nominal interest rates but not real interest rates is known as the

A.Friedman Effect.

B.Hume Effect.

C.Fisher Effect.

D.None of the above is correct.

16.The nominal interest rate is 3 per cent and the inflation rate is 2 per cent. What is the real interest rate?

A.6 per cent

B.5 per cent

C.1.5 per cent

D.1 per cent

17.Which of the following helps to explain why the inflation fallacy is a fallacy?

A.Increases in the price level can be created by increases in money demand.

B.Nominal incomes tend to rise at the same time that the price level is rising.

C.As the price level rises, the value of a dollar falls.

D.Inflation only changes nominal variables.

18.The shoe-leather cost of inflation refers to

A.the re distributional effects of unexpected inflation.

B.the time spent searching for low prices when inflation rises.

C.the waste of resources used to maintain lower money holdings.

D.the increased cost to the government of printing more money.

19.Which of the following is an example of menu costs?

A.deciding on new prices

B.printing new price-lists

C.advertising new prices

D.All of the above are examples of menu costs.

20.Which of the following are U.S. taxpayers allowed to adjust for inflation for income taxes?

A.both interest in income and capital gains.

B.interest income but not capital gains.

C.capital gains but net interest income.

D.neither interest income nor capital gains.

21.You put money into an account and earn a real interest rate of 4 per cent. Inflation is 2 per cent, and your marginal tax rate is 20 per cent. What is your after-tax real rate of interest?

A.1.2 per cent

B.2.8 per cent

C.4.8 per cent

D.None of the above is correct.

22.Which of the following is correct? Inflation

A.impedes financial markets in their role of allocating resources.

B.reduces the purchasing power of the average consumer.

C.generally increases after-tax real interest rates.

D.is most costly when anticipated.

23.Wealth is redistributed from creditors to debtors when inflation is

A.high, whether it is expected or not.

B.low, whether it is expected or not.

C.unexpectedly high.

D.unexpectedly low.