Over the weekend I watched the new Justin Timberlake movie, In Time. In this edition of Welker’s Wikinomics Podcast I analyze the movie’s basic premise from a macroeconomic viewpoint.

Listen to the podcast, and then answer the discussion questions at the bottom of this post.

Discussion Questions:

1. Why does increasing the supply of money cause the demand for goods and services to rise?
2. Why does increasing the supply of money ultimately cause the supply of goods and services to fall?
3. When would an increase in the money supply be most inflationary, when an economy is producing close to its full employment level or when an economy is experiencing a recession? Explain.
4. With the help of a money market diagram and an aggregate demand / aggregate supply diagram, illustrate the effects of Will and Silvia’s re-distribution of time on the Ghetto’s economy.
5. According to Friedman, expansionary monetary policy cannot contribute to a nation’s long-run economic growth. What types of government policies can be implemented to promote economic growth in a nation?

Podcast Credits: 

• Intro song: The Rolling Stones – Time is On My Side
• Ending song: Pink Floyd – Money
• Milton Friedman quotes – Donahue, 1980

Related posts:

1. From the Help Desk: the money multiplier and new money creation
2. “Why can’t the government just print more money?” – NOT such a silly question!
3. Loanable Funds vs. Money Market: what’s the difference?

The activity below is to introduce Economics students to the three primary Macroeconomic objectives of any government or policy making body. These are :

Full employment of the nations work force: This means that nearly everyone who wants to work in the country is able to find a job. It does not mean that there is no unemployment, rather that the unemployment that does prevail in the economy is voluntary, i.e. it exists because workers are simply not willing to work at the prevailing wage rate. If there is involuntary unemployment in the economy, then the country is not meeting its macroeconomic objective, and there is likely a recession caused by a lack of overall demand (aggregate demand) for the nation’s goods and services.

Resources for learning about Full Employment:

• Textbook (Welker’s IB Economics for the IB Diploma) pages 286 – 288, 295-299.
• Reffonomics – Measuring Unemployment
• Reffonomics – the Types of Unemployment
  
• Reffonomics – Unemployment and Employment Quiz

Price level stability: Changes in the average price level of goods and services in the nation are measured by calculating inflation, commonly using a consumer price index to do so. Low and stable inflation is one of the macroeconomic objectives since price level volatility (high inflation or deflation) has several harmful effects on a nation’s households and business firms. Keeping inflation low and stable promotes a healthy environment for achieving business investment, full employment and economic growth

Resources for learning about Price level stability:

• Textbook pages 302-303, 306-307, 311-314
• Reffonomics – Calculating Inflation using a CPI
• Reffonomics – The effects of inflation
• Reffonomics – Inflation Quiz

Economic growth: The third macroeconomic objective is to increase the output of the nation’s goods and services year after year. Economic growth refers to the increase in real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and can be measured by finding the total value of a nation’s output one year, comparing it to the previous year, and adjusting it for any changes in the price level between the years. Economic growth is a desirable goal because it generally means that incomes are rising and people’s lives are getting better. Of course, GDP only measures the physical output of goods and services, and does not include many non-economic variables that also should be considered when measuring people’s well-being. But rising incomes and output are deemed worthy goals since they are associated with rising living standards.

• Textbook pages 244, 251-253, 337-340
• Reffonomics – Real GDP lesson
• Reffonomics – Real GDP Multiple Choice Quiz

Assignment: Complete the readings and online activities above. Then use the data in the table linked below to answer the quesitons that follow.

Questions:

1. Calculate the unemployment rates for each of the years in the table. Describe what happened to unemployment over the years displayed.
2. Calculate the inflation rates between each of the years in the table. Describe what happened to inflation over the years displayed.
3. Calculate the Real GDP for each of the years in the table.
4. Calculate the Real GDP growth rates between each of the years in the table. Describe what happened to real GDP from one year to the next in the years displayed.
5. Describe the relationship between the inflation and unemployment rates you calculated for each of the years. Is there any correlation in how the figures change from year to year?
6. Based on your analysis of the data above, to what extent has the United States succeeded in achieving its three macroeconomic objectives of:

• Full employment?
• Price level stability?
• Economic growth?

Related posts:

1. Lesson Plan: Macroeconomic Indicators around the World
2. Politics, priorities, and the Phillips Curve
3. A must read for AP Macro teachers: Paul Krugman explains why deficit spending during a recession does NOT cause crowding-out

Directions: Macroeconomics is an area of study with precise goals attached to it. Macroeconomists generally agree that there are three primary goals towards which policies should be used to try and achieve:

• Full employment of the nation’s resources, including labor, land and capital.
• Price level stability, meaning a low (generally between 2% and 4%) inflation rates
• Economic growth, meaning a year on year increase in the nation’s output of goods and services and the average income of the nation’s people.

Understanding the indicators used in macroeconomics to measure the success in these three areas is important. In the activity that follows, you will research, define, and explain the various types of inflation, unemployment and economic growth. You will also research and record examples of these indicators from several countries. Finally, you will investigate your OWN country, and determine what precisely makes up the total amount of economic activity in your country.

Part 1: Using your notes and your textbook (Welker’s chapters 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15), answer the following questions. Most of the country data you are asked to find can be found in the CIA World Factbook.

1. Identify the four components of a nation’s aggregate demand and briefly explain two factors that affect each of the four components (this can be found in Welker’s chapter 12) [10 marks]
2. Research and identify the main macroeconomic indicators for your home country. Enter the information you find into THIS ONLINE FORM, and click submit when you’re done.

• From the CIA World Factbook you should be able to discover your country’s main macroeconomic indicators (GDP, GDP per capita, inflation rate
• Using the Eurostat website, you can find out what percentage of your country’s GDP is made up of government spending.
• If you are not from a European country, you may have to do a little more investigation to find the percentage of GDP made up of government spending.

Part 3: The Results : You can view the results of the form by clicking HERE

Discussion Questions:

1. Which of the countries appear to be doing the BEST job of meeting their macroeconomic objectives of low unemployment, low inflation and economic growth?
   
2. Which countries appear to be doing the WORST at meeting their macroeconomic objectives?
3. Which countries have the highest GDP growth rates? What do the highest growth countries have in common? What is different about them?
4. Which countries have the lowest unemployment rates? What do these countries have in common?
5. Which country experienced a recession in 2010? Discuss the possible relationship between economic growth and unemployment?

Related posts:

1. Measuring the Macroeconomic Objectives: in-class activity for AP Macro
2. Lesson plan: Elasticity, exchange rates and the balance of payments – understanding the Marshall Lerner Condition
3. Lesson Plan: Sources of Economic Growth and Development

This article was originally published on May 12, 2008. It is being re-published since it relates to our current units in AP and IB Economics.

The Associated Press: Gas prices knock bicycle sales, repairs into higher gear

Greg Mankiw has an ongoing series of posts linking to articles illustrating the impact that rising gas prices have had on demand in markets other than that of the automobile.

One of the determinants of demand for goods and services is the price of related goods and services. As gas prices rise, drivers tend to switch from automobiles to alternative forms of transportation. A few days ago I blogged about the switch from tractors to camels in India, one illustration of the relationship between the price of one good and demand for its substitutes. Mankiw has so far linked to articles about the impact of high gas prices on demand for bicycles, small cars and mass transit.

These three “goods” are all substitutes for the most common form of transport among Americans, the private automobile (often times a gas-guzzler in “the bigger the better” America). When the price of a good like personal vehicular transport increases (in this case due to the price of an input required in private cars, gasoline), the demand for a substitute good will increase.

In the case of bicycles, evidence indicates that just such a change in demand is already underway in America today:

Bicycle shops across the country are reporting strong sales so far this year, and more people are bringing in bikes that have been idled for years, he said.

“People are riding bicycles a lot more often, and it’s due to a mixture of things but escalating gas prices is one of them,” said Bill Nesper, spokesman for the Washington. D.C.-based League of American Bicyclists.

“We’re seeing a spike in the number of calls we’re getting from people wanting tips on bicycle commuting,” he said.

Interestingly, the increase in demand for bicycle travel in response to high gas prices might be even more pronounced due to America’s sluggish growth, 4% inflation and rising unemployment. Real wages have seen little gain in the last couple of years as growth has fallen close to zero while prices have continued to rise. It may be possible that a fall in real incomes in America has spurred new demand for bicycle transportation, which could be considered an inferior good, meaning that as household incomes fall, consumers demand more bicycles for transportation.

Since bicycles represent such a drastically cheaper method of transportation, high gas and food prices, a weak dollar, and falling real wages accompanying the economic slowdown have had a negative income effect on American consumers, leading to increases in demand for inferior goods such as bicycle transportation

That said, having worked in a bike shop myself for two years in college, I can say that most consumers looking at new bicycles are not doing so because of falling incomes. Quite the opposite, in fact, indicating that new bicycles are normal goods (those for which as income rises, demand rises). However, the article states that in addition to increases in new sales, “more people are bringing in bikes that have been idled for years”.

It may be that while new bicycles themselves are normal goods, bicycle transportation as a whole is an inferior good. The increase in demand for new bicycles could be explained by the substitution effect (as the price of motor vehicle transportation rises, its substitute, bicycle transport, becomes more attractive to consumers) and at the same time explained by the income effect too (as real incomes have fallen, demand for the bicycle transport has risen).

This phenomenon is an excellent illustration of how the income and substitution effects work in conjunction to explain the inverse relationship between price and quantity demanded for automobiles (the law of demand), as well as the concept of cross-price elasticity of demand between two substitute goods.

Discussion Questions:

1. Both the price of substitute goods and income affect demand for a particular product. How have both the prices of substitutes for bikes and the income of bike consumers influenced the demand for bicycles in different ways?
2. What is the definition of an “inferior good” in economics?Do you believe bicycle transportation is an “inferior good”?
3. Are all bikes the same? Do you think demand for some bicycles responds differently to changes in income than demand for other bicycles?

Related posts:

1. The economic benefits of bike commuting
2. Supply and demand shifters and the price of pork in China
3. What does a good IB Economics Commentary look like?

I received the following email today, which gave me a great excuse to write a blog post about monetary policy! My reply to the teacher is below.

Jason,

I hate to bug you, but I have a question. I am a first year AP Econ teacher and I know something is going to come up right away and I want to explain it in the simplest way. “Why can’t the govt. just print more money?” I know the inflation part of it, but when I am reading to look for quality ways of explaining it, I see plenty of information about it, but I can’t grasp it. Principle 9 in Mankiw text states “Prices rise when the govt. prints too much money.” I feel like a dumb kid and I am supposed to teach this!!!!

If you can help, great, if not, I will figure it out.

Thanks,
Teacher

Dear Teacher,

I love your question! It is definitely one of those issues that gets glossed over in most economics textbooks. Or it is assumed that the money supply diagram makes it obvious why excessive monetary growth leads to inflation. But I agree, this is one of those things that for the first couple of years I taught economics, I probably didn’t really understand all that well either! So let me try to break it down in plain English for you. This will be good for me too, cause I always understand things more clearly myself after writing them (which is why writing a textbook is about the best PD I’ve every undertaken!)

So, here it goes:

Printing money and its effect on inflation is a bit more complicated than it sounds. In fact, it is the US treasury that prints money, but it is the Federal Reserve that determines how much money is actually in circulation in the economy. Money printed by the Treasury is distributed to the twelve Federal Reserve banks around the country. The treasury and the government of which it is a part does not have any say on how much money actually gets injected into the economy, as monetary policy decisions are left up to the Federal Reserve.

Traditionally, the Fed has one tool for injecting new money into the economy, a tool known as “open market operations”. (I say traditionally, because in the last three years the Fed has devised numerous new ways to “inject liquidity” into the economy, which I will not get into now). To increase the nation’s money supply, the Fed buys US government bonds on the open market from commercial banks. Commercial banks invest some of American households’ savings into government bonds just like they invest some of our money into individuals and businesses by making loans and charging interest on those loans. Commercial banks will want to buy government bonds if the interest on them rises and will want to sell those bonds when the interest rate falls.

If the Fed want to increase the money supply to stimulate spending in the economy, it will announce an open market purchase of bonds. When the Fed buys bonds, the demand for bonds increases, raising their prices and lowering their effective interest rate. As the interest on government bonds falls as a result of the Fed’s open market operations, banks find them less desirable to hold onto as investments and therefore sell them to the Fed in exchange for, you guessed it, liquid money, fresh off the printing presses!

Remember, the money printed at the Treasury and held at the Fed was NOT part of the money supply, since it is out of reach of private borrowers. But as soon as the Fed buys bonds with that money, it is deposited into commercial banks’ excess reserves and is therefore now in the commercial banking system and therefore part of the money supply. So, “printing money” does not immediately increase the money supply since newly printed money only ends up in the Fed; only once the Fed has undertaken an expansionary monetary policy (an open market bond purchase) does the newly printed money enter the money supply.

Now, commercial banks have just sold their illiquid assets (government bonds) to the Fed in exchange for liquid money. Picture the money market diagram and you will see the money supply increasing.

So the next question is, why does this lead to inflation?

Banks now hold more excess reserves, most of which are kept on reserve at their regional Federal Reserve bank. Reserves held at the Fed do NOT earn interest for the banks, and therefore actually lose value over time as inflation erodes the purchasing power of these idle reserves. Banks, of course, want to invest these reserves to earn interest beyond the rate of inflation and thereby create earn them revenue. In order to attract new borrowers, commercial banks, whose reserves have increased following the Fed’s bond purchase, must offer borrowers a lower interest rate. The increase in the supply of money leads to a decrease in the “price” of money, i.e. the interest rates banks charge borrowers.

So here we see why an increase in the money supply leads to lower interest rates. With greater excess reserves, banks must lower the rate they charge each other (the federal funds rate) and thus the prime rate they charge their most credit-worthy borrowers and all other interest rates in the economy, in order to attract new borrowers and get their idle reserves out there earning interest for the bank.

Lower interest rates create an incentive for firms to invest in new capital since now more investment projects have an expected rate of return equal to or greater than the new lower interest rate. Additionally, the lower rates on savings discourages savings by households and thereby increases the level of household consumption. Households find it cheaper to borrow money to purchase durable goods like cars and it also becomes cheaper to buy new homes or undertake costly home improvements. So we begin to see investment and consumption rise across the economy as the increase in the money supply reduces borrowing costs and decreases the incentive to save. Aggregate demand has started to rise.

Additionally, the lower rate on US government bonds resulting from the Fed’s open market purchase reduces the incentive for foreign investors to save their money in US bonds and in US banks, which are now offering lower interest rates. Falling foreign demand for the dollar causes it to depreciate. A weaker dollar makes US exports more attractive to foreign consumers, so in addition to increased consumption and investment in the US, net exports begin to rise as well, further increasing aggregate demand.

Increasing the money supply (not so much by printing money rather because of the “easy money” policy of the Fed), leads to increased consumption, investment, and net exports, and therefore aggregate demand in the economy. The rising demand among domestic consumers, foreign consumers, and domestic producers for the nation’s output puts upward pressure on prices as the nation’s producers find it hard to keep up with the rising demand. Once consumers start to see prices rising, inflationary expectations will further increase the incentive to buy more now and save less, leading to even more household consumption. Firms see price rises in the future and increase their investment now to meet the expected rises in demand tomorrow.

It does not take much for inflation to accelerate in such an environment. If the the government and the Fed do not slow down the increase in the money supply (STOP THE PRINTING PRESSES!) then soon enough workers will begin demanding higher wages and resource costs will start to increase in all sectors of the economy, causing the nation’s aggregate supply to decline as firms find it harder to cover their rising costs. Now we have both demand-pull AND cost push inflation! The weaker currency also makes imported raw materials more costly to firms, further adding to the inflationary environment. An inflationary spiral is now underway!

Milton Friedman said that “inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon”. Controlling the rate of growth in the money supply, say the monetarists, will assure that the fluctuations in the business cycle will be mild and periods of dramatic inflation and deflation can be avoided. Stable money growth should lead to stable economic growth. But as soon as we start running the printing presses inflation will not be far behind. On the flip-side, contractionary monetary policies should in theory lead to the exact opposite of what I describe above and cause a deflation. If a central bank were to tighten the money supply too much, interest rates would rise, investment, consumption and net exports would fall, and falling prices would force firms to lay off workers, leading to high unemployment and an economic contraction.

I’ll leave you with one question to ponder (the answer to which would require a much longer article than this one!). If Friedman was right, and increasing the money supply will always and everywhere lead to inflation, then how is it that the monetary base in the United States increased by 142% between 2008 and 2009, yet inflation declined over the same period and fell to as low as -2% in mid-2009? That’s right, the money supply more than doubled, yet the economy went into deflation. Was Friedman missing something in his calculation that monetary growth always leads to price level increases? In other words, is an open market purchase of bonds by the Fed all that is needed to stimulate demand during a recession? Perhaps Friedman, who died in 2006 right before the US entered the Great Recession, would have to re-consider his famous quote if he could see the effect (or lack of effect) of America’s unprecedented monetary growth over the last three years!

Related posts:

1. From the Help Desk – more on loanable funds and the money market
2. Loanable Funds vs. Money Market: what’s the difference?
3. Will the Fed’s easy money policy fuel global inflation?

Infographics are a great way for students to dig a bit deeper and explore an issue. They are typically a combination of graphs, maps, visuals, charts and texts that can be explored through the internet. The New York Times has produced a wealth of these resources over the past few years and this week they are showcasing their best exhibits. It is important for students of Economics to be able to read and interpret visual information, to learn about the world around them. Some of my favourites from the NY Times website are here. Click on the images to explore

For an overview of infographics

For a full list of relevant infographics for Economics, Social Studies and History – NY Times

Click on the images to explore

Can a President Tame the Business Cycle?

How Different Groups Spend Their Day

All of Inflation’s Little Parts

Debt Rising in Europe

What Your Global Neighbors Are Buying

Related posts:

1. Pacing in the new IB Economics Syllabus – a special post for IB Economics teachers
2. Why basic economics should be taught
3. Why learning Economics is SO important!

Introduction: The following is a selection of a chapter from my new Economics textbook project, the Pearson Baccalaureate Economics text, which will be available to IB Economics teacher for the 2011-2013 school year.

It should be noted that the original Phillips Curve theory did not distinguish between the short-run and the long-run. In fact, the original Phillips Curve itself was a long-run model demonstrating a trade-off between unemployment and changes in the wage rate over a span of 52 years in the United Kingdom.

Up until the early 1970s, the Phillips Curve was treated as a generally accurate demonstration of the relationship between two important macroeconomic indicators. Throughout the 60′s data for the United States showed in most cases that increases in unemployment corresponded with lower inflation rates, and vis versa.

Related posts:

1. Politics, priorities, and the Phillips Curve
2. You can’t always get what you want… the tradeoff between unemployment and inflation
3. The Federal Reserve and the tradeoff between unemployment and inflation

As the Singapore economy rebounded spectacularly this week ,the government moved to limit inflationary pressures. This was after year-on-year economic growth reached 13.1% in the first quarter of 2010.  This strong performance was related to the increased demand for electronic components and growth in the pharmaceutical industry.

The Singapore government operates a managed exchange rate regime. The Singapore dollar is pegged to a trade-weighted index of five currencies. The exact make-up of the index is kept secret, but the rate is allowed to fluctuate within a four percent target range. This ambiguity leads to less speculation by currency traders, and what is known as a basket, band and crawl method of currency management. Overtime, this has allowed the government to steadily appreciate the currency as demand for exports surged. Since 1980’s the value of the Singapore dollar versus the US Dollar has appreciated by nearly 80%.

This exchange rate mechanism is also how the government controls the rate of inflation in the small city-state. Because Singapore’s net exports make up over 100% of GDP, a subtle appreciation of the exchange rate leads to less imported inflation and less demand for exports. The effect of a 1.3% appreciation of the currency band this week, is expected to reduce inflationary pressure over the next 12 months.

The approach is something that the Chinese government is maybe looking towards. The Yuan is pegged directly to the US Dollar and has been since mid-2007. China has been able to maintain this peg by selling vast amounts of yuan to purchase US Treasury Bonds, and to thereby create large foreign currency reserves. As widely reported, the Chinese government has been under pressure to appreciate the yuan by anything up to 60% compared to the US dollar. How the government achieves this shift is complicated but may lead to a significant loss of export competitiveness and imported inflation.

However as Wei Gu from Reuters reports,

“This (Singapore) approach is not open to China, whose inflationary pressures are home-grown, and whose exchange rate looks more undervalued. Nevertheless, Beijing can learn from Singapore’s model, which offers a better balance between stability and flexibility”

Of course, there are huge differences between a city-state and the world’s third-largest economy. Singapore, whose foreign trade is three times its GDP, has to allow enough freedom in its exchange rate to achieve domestic price stability. China, where foreign trade accounts for 50 percent of GDP, that incentive is much smaller.

Moreover, China could not adopt Singapore’s approach without a one-time appreciation in its currency. Otherwise it would be hard to create a two-way trade: China currently restricts the yuan’s movement against the dollar to just 0.5 percent every day. Nevertheless, as China considers making its exchange rate more flexible without abandoning stability, the Singaporean model is worth studying.”

Discussion Questions:

1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of a floating exchange rate?
2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of a fixed exchange rate?
3. What is the common tool used by many governments to control inflation. Why can’t all countries use the Singapore approach?
4. Can a country use both Monetary Policy and a managed exchange rate to control inflation? Do trade-offs exist?
5. Evaluate the effects on the Chinese economy of an appreciation of the yuan.

Related posts:

1. How do changing interest rates affect exchange rates? The example of the RMB
2. Exchange rates, currency manipulations, and the balance of trade
3. Exchange rates and trade: a delicate balancing act, currently out of balance!

Argentina’s reserves and its debts: Central Bank robbery | The Economist

I received the following email from an Econ teacher who wonders if I had any insight on a question posed by one of his students:

The email reads: “I have alittle query i was hoping you could help clear up for me..a year 13 student has asked a question relating to Argentina’s prime minister, Cristina Fernandezde De Kirchner’s, decision to sell the central bank’s dollar reserves to fund part of the country’s decifit against the advice of the director of the central bank who resigned.”

The student’s question is on the following passage from the Economist article above:

Fernández (Argentina’s president”) justified her raid on the reserves by saying that the Central Bank had more than it needed, because they exceeded the size of the monetary base. Economists disagree about what is an appropriate target for the reserves, but Mr Redrado’s view is that a highly dollarised emerging economy like Argentina’s needs an abundance of Treasury bonds (the form in which most reserves are held) as insurance. Even if Ms Fernández might find support from some economists for her argument, her plan to swap the dollar reserves for a non-transferable government bond would not.

The student’s question is: “I do not know what a monetary base is, nor why Argetina needs treasury bonds.”

This article really caught me off guard at first as well. One thing I love about the Economist newspaper is its use of economic jargon that requires a real understanding of the subject to be able to interpret. The first time I read the article, I will be honest I was completely confused as to what the Argentinean president was up to. But after some reflection and rough sketches of graphs on scrap paper, I think I have “translated” the article’s jargon into plain English.

Below is my reply to the teacher and his student:

Hello,

The president of Argentina wants to sell the country’s US dollar reserves, which are held in the form of US treasury bonds, and then use the US dollars she receives to buy Argentinean government bonds in order to finance her own government’s budget deficit. In essence she wants to swap Argentina’s central bank reserves of US debt (considered a very stable and safe asset due to America’s low inflation rate and relative solvency of the US government) for Argentinean government debt (less stable and safe, especially in the wake of the country’s 2002 default on its debt). Argentina’s central bank would then hold fewer transferable, stable US bonds and more “non-transferable”, Argentinean government bonds. And since the bonds represent Argentina’s government debt, the country as a whole reduces its assets and increases its liabilities.

It is important for a developing country like Argentina to keep large reserves of US dollar-denominated assets (i.e. US treasury bonds) in reserve in order to assure foreign investors that the country would be able to stabilize its currency’s value in the face of a currency crisis such as that which Argentina experienced in 2001-2002. If the value of the peso began to decline on foreign exchange markets (due, for instance, to a decline in international investor confidence in the government’s ability to pay the interest on its foreign debt or inflation fears caused by excessive monetary growth or government spending) then the central bank could use its large dollar reserves to intervene in the forex market and stabilize the value of the peso, reestablishing investor confidence and maintaining the government’s ability to attract foreign creditors in the Argentinean bond market. A collapse of the peso would have ripple effects throughout Argentina, driving up imported products and raw materials and causing spiraling inflation, forcing the government to print more money to finance its budget in the face of falling demand for its debt in domestic and international bond markets.

Argentina must be sure to keep its balance sheet (i.e. its liability to asset ratio) in check. Its assets are US government bonds, its liabilities are the Argentinean bonds it issues to finance its budget deficits. If this ratio become too heavy on the liability side, foreign investors and speculators will lose confidence in the both peso and the Argentinean government’s solvency and dump their holdings of Argentinean currency, assets, and bonds, driving interest rates through the roof and the exchange rate through the floor, grinding the economy to a halt.

The article says,

Argentina’s economy is on course to rebound this year and grow at 3-5%. But the government is spending money so fast that this growth will not finance current spending on its own, says Daniel Marx, a former finance minister. Ordinarily, a government faced with a shortfall would turn to domestic and international bond markets. But this has been difficult since Argentina defaulted in 2002.

The country cannot count on private creditors to make up its budget shortfall, so the president is planning to finance her country’s deficit by buying Argentinean bonds with the country’s own US dollar reserves. Such behavior concerns economists because it could send a message to international investors that the country is on the path towards another unsustainable build-up of debt that could culminate in another default and economic collapse. The article is a word of caution to the president that all leaders should heed: balanced budgets are a good idea, and debt is dangerous!

Related posts:

1. Sample IB Economics Internal Assessment Commentary – Understanding the ECB’s bond-purchasing program
2. Unemployment and inflation: understanding the Fed’s balancing act
3. China’s “silver bullet” – a strong RMB could solve her biggest economic woes…

MV=PQ: A Resource for Economic Educators: Some Classroom Resources

Special thanks to Tim Schilling at MV=PQ blog for pointing out the Cleveland Fed’s interesting video series called the “Drawing Board”.

This video introduces the concept of Consumer Price Index as a measure of inflation in the United States, shows how CPI is calculated, and then goes into a bit more detail than perhaps the AP or IB student needs when it introduces a new method of measuring inflation used by the Fed called “median inflation”.

AP and IB students can benefit most from watching up to 4:12. In this first half of the video the CPI is defined, its measurement demonstrated, short-comings discussed and the “core CPI” explained.

Discussion Questions:

1. Why does the Bureau of Labor Statistics weight different items included in the measure of the consumer price index? What type of good gets a greater weights than others?
2. What are some of the purposes the CPI figure serves? Why do we care about changes in the price level in an economy?
3. What is one short-coming of the traditional method used for measuring the inflation rate using CPI?
4. Why did the BLS decide exclude oil and food prices from its “core CPI” figure?

Related posts:

1. Unemployment and inflation: understanding the Fed’s balancing act
2. Economics in plain English: Understanding Argentina’s budget woes
3. The price of a beer in Zimbabwe: $4,813,277 and rising, FAST!

This article was originally posted on September 19, 2007

FT.com / Asia-Pacific / China – China freezes government-set prices

Here’s a great article for both AP and IB students to pay attention to. The Chinese government is responding to rising prices at home by resorting to some good old fashioned “iron fist” measures, namely price controls on a wide range of products. For the rest of this year, prices on certain goods and services will not be permitted to rise, OR ELSE! (what? we don’t want to know!)

China has begun to enforce a freeze on all government-controlled prices in a sign of the central government’s alarm about rising popular anger over inflation, now at the highest rate in over a decade.The order freezes a vast array of prices still under the control of governments in China, ranging from oil, electricity and water, to the cost of parking and park entrance fees.

I find the following statement interesting:

“Any unauthorised price rises are strictly forbidden…and in principle, there will be no new price-raising measures this year,” the ministries’ announcement said. (italics added)

How strange is it that the government’s announcement pointed out that the freeze on prices is only in principle? Could this be the government’s attempt to placate a public that’s grown angry at their weakening purchasing power? Does this mean that if prices actually do go up, the government can just say, “Hey, at least we tried!” Looks like the old communist mentality has softened a bit in the era of market reforms!

So what’s the source of all these rising prices? Well, food plays a big role, thanks to a couple of factors:

The sharp spike in inflation is largely due to higher food prices, because of a shortage of pigs after a disease killed millions late last year and earlier in 2007, and the rising cost of feed, a global
phenomenon.

The China of today is very different from that of 20 or 30 years ago, when the government played a much larger role in the economy. Unleashing the beast of the free market in the early 80′s may have meant the government would have to loosen its grip in situations such as today’s inflation, and let the free market adjust on its own.

Economists said the price freeze is the kind of administrative measure redolent of China’s former planned economy, but it may be less effective in China today.

“They will not be able to control the price of everything,” said Chen Xingdong, of BNP Parisbas in Beijing.

Perhaps that’s for the better.

Discussion Questions:

1. Why might the government’s price controls actually make the matter worse for the average Chinese?
2. If the government were to take a “laissez faire” approach to the problems faced by China, how might the free market resolve them on its own? Any ideas?

Related posts:

1. “A glimmer of hope” – rising incomes in China lead to rising demand for US exports
2. The true causes of and solutions to inflation in China
3. Deflation: why lower prices spell doom for any economy!

I wonder how many people in countries like Switzerland, Brazil, Canada, Russia, and China, and the United States would be surprised to learn that prices of products and services in their countries have become much less expensive over the years.

Say what? You must be crazy, you say! Prices are rising way too fast!

Yes, most citizens see their purchases as becoming more expensive when, in actuality, things are becoming less expensive. Of course, the paradox is that although nominal prices (the actual price tag) are, in fact, increasing, nominal income (the average wage or salary) has been growing faster. This is a topic that in economics is called “real income” or a measurement that compares a nation’s income growth relative to the growth in prices that the same income buys.

Let’s take some specific facts for the United States:
In the United States real median household income grew from $41,318 to $50,811 from 1970 through 2006 for a total percentage gain of 23% (source: Pew Research Center). Both of the aforementioned median household incomes are stated in 2008 or current dollars which makes the comparison valid. Median household income is an attempt to quantify the progress that the “middle American” family or typical family has made. So, in short, the median household in America can buy 23% more with their income today than they could in 1970. In other words, relative prices are lower to income.

If we look at the same United States income data over the same period for real average household income, there is real income growth of nearly 60%. The higher growth (60%) in real incomes for the average household versus the median (middle) growth rate (23%) is explained by the fact that much of the growth in United States’ real incomes has accrued disproportionately to the college educated & entrepreneurs driving up real income growth rates much faster for the average than the median or middle household. (Hint: continue your education!)

Now let’s get back to the main premise of the title of this blog and the opening assertion that prices are lower than ever. What we are really saying is that you have to benchmark price increases to income increases to really understand whether things are becoming more expensive. The vast majority of products & services are cheaper today in all nations than they have ever been before, which helps explain, excluding the effects of the current recession, why more citizens than ever before can afford to own their own houses, drive more and better cars, and are likely to have cable, cell phones, and computers. The reason we are led to believe differently is because we are victims of our own human nature, which often causes us to focus on the problem areas (rising prices) and not the benefits (incomes that are rising faster). Most citizens’ focus expands out to the last dollar of their incomes and they quickly notice those select products that are rising faster than others like health care, gasoline prices, and education! Hey, even gasoline prices are not at an all relative price high. If gasoline prices in the United States are restated for inflation, or set to comparable 2009 dollars, they are $2.60 per gallon today vs. $3.17 in 1981 and $3.50 in 1918!

Now, you may say to yourself that statistics can lie or mislead and you are sure in your gut that things are getting more expensive relatively. You can try to validate that incorrect “gut feeling” by examining whether your country’s middle class is enjoying less or more products and services. “Real income” really is just a measurement of the quantity and quality of products and services that you have. For example, the average American household has larger homes, more cars, more air conditioning, more gadgets, and better healthcare & prescription drugs than, say, 20 years ago.

But let’s end this blog with a concern. Although everything noted above is accurate, the pace of real income growth has been relatively slow over the last 10 years, especially for the middle class in the United States. Most of that growth in real income mentioned above has occurred up until this current decade. For the last 10 years, median family income growth in the U.S. has been very small and the average income growth has been higher but below the U.S. historical experience. There are many reasons for this slowdown in real income growth, but three big reasons are that

1. the U.S. has now had two recessions this decade (2001 and 2007-current, versus our historical average of only 1 per decade), and
2. energy and health care prices have risen much faster, and
3. foreign labor competition and technology advancement has kept the uneducated/unskilled U.S. workers real income relatively stagnant. More than ever before, a good education is the ticket to your economic future!

Discussion Questions:

1. Inflation is bad, right? Well, what if average prices rise by 2% a year but average incomes rise by 3%. What happens to real income in this situation? Is the average household better or worse off in such a scenario?
2. How have trade and globalization contributed to rising real wages in America and Swizerland?
3. How have trade and globalization contributed to falling nominal wages in America and Switzerland?
4. How do improvments in technology contribute to rising real wages in both developed and developing economies? What about health and education?
5. What types of policies can government pursue to help raise the real wages of the nation’s workers?

Related posts:

1. Deflation: why lower prices spell doom for any economy!
2. Gas prices continue to rise: Who’s worried?
3. GDP made simple…

Fidelity Investments – Inflation: A Threat or Not? by Dirk Hofschire

I was surprised to receive an email from the company that manages my personal investments directing me to an article that I would be able to use in class. But this analysis by a vice president of Fidelity Investments offers and excellent, concise examination of the threat posed by inflation in America today. I will use excerpts from the article and present the ideas in a graphical form to help students better understand the situation faced by the US as it struggles to emerge from its deep recession.

Hofschire sets out to answer four questions about inflation:

1. Is inflation accelerating?
2. Why is higher inflation expected?
3. Why hasn’t inflation occurred yet?
4. When will inflation return?
5. How high will inflation go?

1. Is in flation accellerating:

In short, NO.

In June, the U.S. consumer price index (CPI) declined 1.2% (on a year-over-year basis), representing the biggest fall in prices since 1950.1 Much of the decline is attributable to the steep drop in energy prices over the past year, which may reverse itself in the second half of 2009 if crude-oil prices remain near current levels. However, core CPI—which excludes food and energy—was less than 1.8% in June, demonstrating little inflationary pressure in general

A combination of weak aggregate demand and low resource costs for firms has kept price levels down.  While total spending has falling (leftward shift of AD), firms’ costs of production have fallen (rightward shift of AS). Since total output fell we can see that national income (Y) is less in 2009 than in 2008. Since price level has fallen, we can see deflation.

Diagram 1:

2. Why is higher inflation expected?

With little evidence of economic strength or cost-push inflation today, the concern now is that the monetarist economic view of the world sees inflation clouds on the horizon. The godfather of modern monetarist economic thought, Milton Friedman, once stated, “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” What Friedman meant was that money—specifically changes in the supply and use of currency—was the primary driver for changes to price levels in an economy. Friedman informally defined inflation as “too much money chasing too few goods and services.” As a result, an excessive increase in the amount or use of money relative to economic output is the textbook prescription for inflation.

The inflation described above, and feared by Friedman and today’s monetarists is not of the cost-push type, rather the demand-pull variety. As the vast quantities of money injected by the US Fed work their way through the banking system and into the pockets of consumers and the hands of firm managers, eventually demand for America’s goods and services will rise. But in the current recession, the production of those goods and services has stagnated, meaning that once all this money starts getting spent, the competition among buyers for the limited output of producers will drive prices up.

Diagram 2:

3. Why hasn’t inflation occurred yet?

…there remains considerable downward pressure on prices still in place, due to growing slack in the economy (i.e. underutilized resources, such as labor) and continued deleveraging by consumers and financial firms with heavy debt loads. With the unemployment rate at its highest level in 26 years and consumers saving more and spending less, there is little upward pressure on wages or prices for consumer goods.

Yes, the money supply has increased, which according to our answer to number 2 should lead to inflation. But not if the new money isn’t being spent! Banks with money from the Fed are holding onto their excess reserves instead of loaning them out, due to a prevailing lack of confidence in borrowers ability to repay loans during these hard economic times. If all the money the Central Bank is injecting in the economy is sitting idle, and resources such as labor, land and capital are under-employed, then there is little fear of cost-push nor demand-pull inflation.  Diagram 1 illustrates why inflation hasn’t occured yet.

The excess bank reserves thus represent both the potential for future inflation as well as the explanation for why rapid money growth has yet to create current inflation.

In short, money must be spent to drive inflation up. When households prefer savings to consumption and banks prefer liquidity to risk, inflation is only a distant fear.

4. When will inflation return?

Interestingly, the answer to this question can be summed up as: “hopefully sooner rather than later”. Despite popular belief, some inflation is considered a positive sign of economic growth. Just as deflation is the purveyor of doom and gloom (unemployment, uncertainty, low consumer and investor confidence, credit crunch, etc) inflation is a sign of health returning to the economy (improved confidence, rising employment, looser credit markets, expectations of future growth). Central Bankers like Bernanke will surely be showered with praise, while congressman will be quick to give credit to the fiscal stimulus package.

Whether the pick-up in money velocity leads to significantly higher inflation depends on how quickly the Fed pulls the reins back on the extraordinary credit it is currently providing. In theory, the Fed can take actions to reduce the size of its balance sheet and move back to a more appropriate level of money. In practice, due to the unprecedented expansion in the Fed’s balance sheet, this will be a challenge.

Just as it was the Fed”s and government’s job to get the party started through expansionary monetary and fiscal policies, it is equally important for policymakers to calm the party down should the level of inflation begin to rise.

Diagram 3:

5. How high will inflation go?

Given the high level of slack (i.e. underutilized resources) likely to remain in the economy during the next two years, there also could be offsetting deflationary pressures lingering in the system. For example, the unemployment rate is expected to rise above 10% and not peak until sometime in 2010. Industrial capacity utilization rates are at their lowest level on record, which means a lot of unused capacity in the manufacturing sector. This slack must tighten considerably before upward pressure is placed on wages and other prices.

As a result of this downward pressure on wages, which remain the largest expense for corporations, it would appear a 1970s-style, double-digit inflation outburst remains unlikely in the short to medium term. Average weekly earnings for U.S. workers rose more than 7% annually during the period from 1975-1981 in which consumer price inflation averaged more than 9% and peaked at 14% in 1980.5 It is hard to foresee wage gains of that magnitude reinforcing inflation pressures during the next couple of years.

The 1970′s was a period of high inflation in the US, caused primarily by higher costs for firms rather than increasing demand for output. This “cost-push” inflation is unlikely to occur in today’s climate due to the high levels of unemployment and under-employment of labor, land and capital resources. This does not mean inflation won’t happen, just that it’s unlikely to look like the cost-push variety of the 1970′s.

Diagram 4:

Related posts:

1. Unemployment and inflation: understanding the Fed’s balancing act
2. Will the Fed’s easy money policy fuel global inflation?
3. The true causes of and solutions to inflation in China

The Fed should focus on deflation | The greater of two evils | The Economist

Deflation: a decrease in the general price level of goods and services of an economy. Sounds great, right? Lower prices mean the purchasing power of our income increases, making the “average” person richer! On the surface, it could be concluded that deflation may actually be a good thing. And in some cases, it is!

If prices of goods are falling because of major technological advances (think of the price of cell phones and laptop computers over the last 20 years) or because of massive improvements in the productivity of labor and capital (think of the price of manufactured consumer goods during the Industrial Revolution), then deflation could be considered a sign of healthy economic growth. Put in terms an IB or AP Economics student should understand, a fall in prices caused by an increase in a nation’s aggregate supply is good, since it is accompanied by greater levels of employment and higher real incomes. But if the fall in prices is caused by a decline in spending in the economy (in other words, by a decrease in aggregate demand), the consequences can be catastrophic.

It just so happens that the United States, Great Britain, and my own home of Switzerland are all faced with demand-deficient deflation at this very moment. I’ll allow the Economist to elaborate:

…With unemployment nearing 9% (in the United States), economic output is further below the economy’s potential than at any time since 1982. This gap is likely to widen. House prices are not part of America’s inflation index but their decline is forcing households to reduce debt , which could subdue economic growth for years. As workers compete for scarce jobs and firms underbid each other for sales, wages and prices will come under pressure.

So far, expectations of inflation remain stable: that sentiment is itself a welcome bulwark against deflation. But pay freezes and wage cuts may soon change people’s minds. In one poll, more than a third of respondents said they or someone in their household had suffered a cut in pay or hours…

Does this matter? If prices are falling because of advancing productivity, as at the end of the 19th century, it is a sign of progress, not economic collapse. Today, though, deflation is more likely to resemble the malign 1930s sort than that earlier benign variety, because demand is weak and households and firms are burdened by debt. In deflation the nominal value of debts remains fixed even as nominal wages, prices and profits fall. Real debt burdens therefore rise, causing borrowers to cut spending to service their debts or to default. That undermines the financial system and deepens the recession.

From 1929 to 1933 prices fell by 27%. This time central banks are on the case. In America, Britain, Japan and Switzerland they have pushed short-term interest rates to, or close to, zero…

…inflation is easier to put right than deflation. A central bank can raise interest rates as high as it wants to suppress inflation, but it cannot cut nominal rates below zero… In the worst case, rising debts and defaults depress growth, poisoning the economy by deepening deflation and pressing real interest rates higher….Given the choice, erring on the side of inflation would be less catastrophic than erring on the side of deflation.

Discussion Questions:

1. Deflation poses several threats to an economy that is otherwise fundamentally healthy, such as the United States’. What are some the threats posed by deflation?
2. The expectation of future deflation can have as equally devastating effect. Why is this?
3. What evidence does the article put forth that an economy experiencing deflation may eventually “self-correct”, meaning return to the full employment level of output in the long-run?
4. Why don’t governments and central banks just sit back and let the economy self-correct? In other words, why are fiscal and monetary policies being used so aggressively by the US, Great Britain and Switzerland during this economic crisis?

Deflation or Inflation:Watch the video below, see if gives you any clues as to the causes and effects of deflation. What do you think John Maynard Keynes would say in response to the deflationary fears expressed in the Economist article?

Related posts:

1. Doom and gloom in the headlines as US economy teters on edge of recession…
2. Does free trade really mean lower prices? A debate between two economists much smarter than me
3. Stagflation – a blast from the past could mean trouble for US economy

FT.com / China / Economy & Trade – Downturn drives expat exodus from Shanghai

Having recently moved from Shanghai to Zurich myself, I was interested to see this headline in today’s Financial Times.

Korean companies are shipping workers home, cutting off school fees and repatriating wives and children without their menfolk to cut costs. They are the first large wave of expatriates to have begun leaving China’s financial capital as a result of the global economic crisis but their departure raises the prospect of a broader exodus of foreigners who may take investment, skills and job creation opportunities with them.

The press officer of the Korean consulate in Shanghai could not answer questions about the exodus of her countrymen – because her post had just been abolished and she was being sent back to Korea…

Japanese relocation companies, meanwhile, say there has been a marked rise in Japanese families returning home from Shanghai compared with last year and they expect the pace to pick up further during the traditional peak relocation months of March and April.

As Korean and Japanese families pack up and leave Shanghai, the impact is likely to be felt at international schools catering to the expat community in Eastern China. Koreans made up around 15% of the students at Shanghai American School, while other schools in the city had even larger numbers of Japanese and Korean students. In Beijing the exodus is also underway:

The pain has not been limited to Shanghai. A parent with children enrolled in an expensive Beijing international school says most of her daughters’ Korean classmates have left the school almost overnight.

This story reminds me of my own experience as an international school student in the late 1990′s, when the Asian financial crisis plunged Korea’s economy into deep recession. At the time, 30% of my school in Malaysia were Korean students, and in one semester over half of them packed up and moved back to Korea. In one year enrollment at the International School of Kuala Lumpur’s high school fell from 600 students to 420!

One reason the Korean and Japanese economies are struggling is that they are heavily dependent on exports to the rest of the world. With incomes falling and unemployment rising among their trading partners, the effect is amplified in Japan and Korea by significant falls in aggregate demand and GDP due to lower net exports, investment and consumption in the Japanese economy.

According to this article in the FT, the current fall in exports in Japan is the worst in 50 years.

Japanese exports fell 45.7 per cent in January, eclipsing a 35 per cent drop in December and big declines last month for Taiwan and South Korea.

The slide in exports was the steepest since 1957 and highlighted the severe impact of the global slowdown on demand for Japanese products ranging from cars to heavy machinery and electronics. Exports to the US fell 52.9 per cent and those to China were down 45.1 per cent .

Falling demand has forced manufacturers such as Toyota and Sony to cut production and jobs. It has reinforced concerns the economy will suffer another quarter of falling output. Gross domestic product shrank 3.3 per cent in the last three months of 2008, the largest fall in 35 years.

The diagram below provides a graphical representation of the impact of falling exports on Japan’s economy.

Discussion questions:

1. Some economists believe that recessions are a crisis of confidence. What do they mean by that and how does the situation in Japan seen above reflect this theory?
2. What is the multiplier effect and how does the fall spending on Japanese exports by the rest of the world result in an even greater fall in Japan’s GDP?
3. If you were the manager of a Japanese firm facing falling demand from international customers and you had to cut costs, what costs would  you cut in the short-run to remain competitive? What about in the long-run, assuming demand for your products remained weak?

Related posts:

1. Triple threat puts the pinch on Asian garment makers
2. Return to Shanghai, and a supply/demand paradox
3. China: formerly the world’s factory, now a nation of consumers…