GS101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Reserve Currency, Gross Domestic Product, Classical Liberalism
Document Summary
Gs 101 - a: lecture: tuesday, october 31st and thursday, november 2nd: Lecture notes: political economy in the 20th century: Human resources: size and quality of labour power help to maximize productivity. Basic social institutions: ideology (communism vs. capitalism) Measuring a country"s wealth - gdp (gross domestic product): Gdp is the total value of goods produced and services provided in a country in one year. C + i + g + (x-m) = gdp. Doesn"t take into account the quality of people"s lives. Interest rates: represent the price of money, the cost for borrowing money. Central bank: public institution in charge of printing the national currency and managing interest rates, usually semi-autonomous. Monetary policies (interest rates, set by central bank) Fiscal policies (taxation, determined by national government) Monetary policy: control of the money supply by a semi-autonomous central bank which sets its interest rates. Fiscal policy: how governments raise revenue through taxation and spending money.
