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.
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:
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.
Assignment: Complete the readings and online activities above. Then use the data in the table linked below to answer the quesitons that follow.
Questions:
Calculate the unemployment rates for each of the years in the table. Describe what happened to unemployment over the years displayed.
Calculate the inflation rates between each of the years in the table. Describe what happened to inflation over the years displayed.
Calculate the Real GDP for each of the years in the table.
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.
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?
Based on your analysis of the data above, to what extent has the United States succeeded in achieving its three macroeconomic objectives of:
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.
Define and explain the various types of each of the following:
Define inflation[2 marks]
Type 1 [1 mark]:
Type 2 [1 mark]:
Research and identify the current inflation rates in [3 marks]:
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]
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
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:
Which of the countries appear to be doing the BEST job of meeting their macroeconomic objectives of low unemployment, low inflation and economic growth?
Which countries appear to be doing the WORST at meeting their macroeconomic objectives?
Which countries have the highest GDP growth rates? What do the highest growth countries have in common? What is different about them?
Which countries have the lowest unemployment rates? What do these countries have in common?
Which country experienced a recession in 2010? Discuss the possible relationship between economic growth and unemployment?
As yet another school year begins, we once again find ourselves returning to an atmosphere of economic uncertainty, sluggish growth, and heated debate over how to return the economies of the United States and Europe back onto a growth trajectory. In the last couple of weeks alone the US government has barely avoided a default on its national debt, ratings agencies have downgraded US government bonds, global stock markets have tumbled, confidence in the Eurozone has been pummeled over fears of larger than expected deficits in Italy and Greece, and the US dollar has reached historic lows against currencies such as the Swiss Franc and the Japanese Yen.
What are we to make of all this turmoil? I will not pretend I can offer a clear explanation to all this chaos, but I can offer here a little summary of the big debate over one of the issues above: the debate over the US national debt and what the US should be doing right now to assure future economic and financial stability.
There are basically two sides to this debate, one we will refer to as the “demand-side” and one we will call the “supply-side”. On the demand-side you have economists like Paul Krugman, and in Washington the left wing of the Democratic party, who believe that America’s biggest problem is a lack of aggregate demand.
Supply-siders, on the other hand, are worried more about the US national debt, which currently stands around 98% of US GDP, and the budget deficit, which this year is around $1.5 trillion, or 10% of GDP. Every dollar spent by the US government beyond what it collects in taxes, argue the supply-siders, must be borrowed, and the cost of borrowing is the interest the government (i.e. taxpayers) have to pay to those buying government bonds. The larger the deficit, the larger the debt burden and the more that must be paid in interest on this debt. Furthermore, increased debt leads to greater uncertainty about the future and the expectation that taxes will have to be raised sometime down the road, thus creating an environment in which firms and households will postpone spending, prolonging the period of economic slump.
The demand-siders, however, believe that debt is only a problem if it grows more rapidly than national income, and in the US right now income growth is almost zero, meaning that the growing debt will pose a greater threat over time due to the slow growth in income. Think of it this way, if I owe you $98 and I only earn $100, then that $98 is a BIG DEAL. But if my income increases to $110 and my debt grows to $100, that is not as big a deal. Yes, I owe you more money, but I am also earning more money, so the debt burden has actually decreased.
In order to get US income to grow, say the demand-siders, continued fiscal and monetary stimulus are needed. With the debt deal struck two weeks ago, however, the US government has vowed to slash future spending by $2.4 trillion, effectively doing the opposite of what the demand-siders would like to see happen, pursuing fiscal contraction rather than expansion. As government spending grows less in the future than it otherwise would have, employment will fall and incomes will grow more slowly, or worse, the US will enter a second recession, meaning even lower incomes in the future, causing a the debt burden to grow.
Now let’s consider the supply-side argument. The supply-siders argue that America’s biggest problem is not the lack of demand, rather it is the debt itself. Every borrowed dollar spent by the goverment, say the supply-siders, is a dollar taken out of the private sector’s pocket. As government spending continues to grow faster than tax receipts, the government must borrow more and more from the private sector, and in order to attract lenders, interest on government bonds must be raised. Higher interest paid on government debt leads to a flow of funds into the public sector and away from the private sector, causing borrowing costs to rise for everyone else. In IB and AP Economics, this phenomenon is known as the crowding-out effect: Public sector borrowing crowds out private sector investment, slowing growth and leading to less overall demand in the economy.
Additionally, argue the supply-siders, the increase in debt required for further stimulus will only lead to the expectation among households and firms of future increases in tax rates, which will be necessary to pay down the higher level of debt sometime in the future. The expectation of future tax hikes will be enough to discourage current consumption and investment, so despite the increase in government spending now, the fall in private sector confidence will mean less investment and consumption, so aggregate demand may not even grow if we do borrow and spend today!
This debate is not a new one. The demand-side / supply-side battle has raged for nearly a century, going back to the Great Depression when the prevailing economic view was that the cause of the global economic crisis was unbalanced budgets and too much foreign competition. In the early 30′s governments around the world cut spending, raised taxes and erected new barriers to trade in order to try and fix their economic woes. The result was a deepening of the depression and a lost decade of economic activity, culminating in a World War that led to a massive increase in demand and a return to full employment. Let’s hope that this time around the same won’t be necessary to end our global economic woes.
Recently, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria had two of the leading voices in this economic debate on his show to share their views on what is needed to bring the US and the world out of its economic slump. Princeton’s Paul Krugman, a proud Keynesian, spoke for the demand-side, while Harvard’s Kenneth Rogoff represented the supply-side. Watch the interview below (up to 24:40), read my notes summarizing the two side’s arguments, and answer the questions that follow.
Summary of Krugman’s argument:
Despite the downgrade by Standard & Poor’s (a ratings agency) there appears to be strong demand for US government bonds right now, meaning really low borrowing costs (interest rates) for the US government.
This means investors are not afraid of what S&P is telling them to be afraid of, and are more than happy to lend money to the US government at low interest rates.
Investors are fleeing from equities (stocks in companies), and buying US bonds because US debt is the safest asset out there. The market is saying that the downgrade may lead to more contractionary policies, hurting the real economy. Investors are afraid of contractionary fiscal policy, so are sending a message to Washington that it should spend more now.
The really scary thing is the prospect of another Great Depression.
Can fiscal stimulus succeed in an environment of large amounts of debt held by the private sector? YES, says Krugman, the government can sustain spending to maintain employment and output, which leads to income growth and makes it easier for the private sector to pay down their debt.
With 9% unemployment and historically high levels of long-term unemployment, we should be addressing the employment problem first. We should throw everything we can at increasing employment and incomes.
Is there some upper limit to the national debt? Krugman says the deficit and debt are high, but we must consider costs versus benefits: The US can borrow money and repay in constant dollars (inflation adjusted) less than it borrowed. There must be projects the federal government could undertake with at least a constant rate of return that could get workers employed. If the world wants to buy US bonds, let’s borrow now and invest for the future!
If we discovered that space aliens were about to attack and we needed a massive military buildup to protect ourselves from invasion, inflation and budget deficits would be a secondary concern to that and the recession would be over in 18 months.
We have so many hypothetical risks (inflation, bond market panic, crowding out, etc…) that we are afraid to tackle the actual challenge that is happening (unemployment, deflation, etc..) and we are destroying a lot of lives to protect ourselves from these “phantom threats”.
The thing that’s holding us back right now in the US is private sector debt. Yes we won’t have a self-sustaining recovery until private sector debt comes down, at least relative to incomes. Therefore we need policies that make income grow, which will reduce the burden of private debt.
The idea that we cannot do anything to grow until private debt comes down on its own is flawed… increase income, decrease debt burden!
Things that we have no evidence for that are supposed to be dangerous are not a good reason not to pursue income growth policies.
When it comes down to it, there just isn’t enough spending in the economy!
Summary of Rogoff’s argument:
The downgrade was well justified, and the reason for the demand for treasuries is that they look good compared to the other options right now.
There is a panic going on as investors adjust to lower growth expectations, due to lack of leadership in the US and Europe.
This is not a classical recession, rather a “Great Contraction”: Recessions are periodic, but a financial crisis like this is unusual, this is the 2nd Great Contraction since the Depresssion. It’s not output and employment, but credit and housing which are contracting, due to the “debt overhang”.
If you look at a contraction, it can take up to 4 or 5 years just to get back where you started.
This is not a double dip recession, because we never left the first one.
Rogoff thinks continued fiscal stimulus would worsen the debt overhang because it leads to the expectation of future tax increases, thus causing firms and households increased uncertainty and reduces future growth.
If we used our credit to help facilitate a plan to bring down the mortgage debt (debt held by the private sector), Rogoff would consider that a better option than spending on employment and output. Fix the debt problem, and spending will resume.
Rogoff thinks we should not assume that interest rates of US debt will last indefinitely. Infrastructure spending, if well spent, is great, but he is suspicious whether the government is able to target its spending so efficiently to make borrowing the money worthwhile.
Rogoff thinks if government invests in productive projects, stimulus is a good idea, but “digging ditches” will not fix the economy.
Until we get the debt levels down, we cannot get back to robust growth.
It’s because of the government’s debt that the private sector is worried about where the country’s going. If we increase the debt to finance more stimulus, there will be more uncertainty, higher interest rates, possibly inflation, and prolonged stagnation in output and incomes.
When it comes down to it, there is just too much debt in the economy!
Discussion Question:
What is the fundamental difference between the two arguments being debated above? Both agree that the national debt is a problem, but where do the two economists differ on how to deal with the debt?
The issues of “digging ditches and filling them in” comes up in the discussion. What is the context of this metaphor? What are the two economists views on the effectiveness of such projects?
Following the debate, Fareed Zakaria talks about the reaction in China to S&P’s downgrade of US debt. What does he think about the popular demands in China for the government to pull out of the market for US government bonds?
Explain what Zakaria means when he describes the relationship between the US and China as “Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)”.
Should the US government pursue a second stimulus and directly try to stimulate employment and income? Or should it continue down the path to austerity, cutting government programs to try and balance its budget?
I was thinking about the great students that I teach and wondering what they should be doing today to increase their odds of not being one of the future unemployed in our country’s unemployment statistics. But before I give that advice, let’s first look at the composition of the unemployed using the official unemployment statistics as reported by the BLS for the most recent October 2010 monthly report:
The current 9.6% national unemployment rate consists of the following:
4.7% unemployment for those with a college degree or advanced degree
8.5% unemployment for those with some college, but not a bachelor degree
10.1% unemployment for those with a high school degree, but no college
15.3% unemployment for those with less than a high school degree
It is easy to see from the above trend that one should get as much education as you can! The jobs in today’s advanced economies are clearly biased towards those with advanced skills, advanced degrees in the form of a master’s degree or better, and education is the clearest path to get those 21st century skills!
Besides teaching Economics, I also teach Personal Finance. When learning about careers in Personal Finance, I suggest to my students that they should be concerned more about majoring in “LIFE”, rather than majoring in Marketing, History, Education, Economics, or Political Science. Moreover, they should even be more concerned about majoring in LIFE than in whether they should apply to Virginia Tech, William & Mary, Duke, or Georgetown. By majoring in LIFE they are more apt to have the best college experience and career possible, and increase their likelihood of never being structurally, or even cyclically, unemployed.
So, you might be asking, what exactly is this LIFE major?
I’m glad you asked!
LIFE is an acronym for what I, and many others, consider the 4 key skill sets to thrive in 21st Century future careers, which will include a rate of technological, social, and global change never seen before. Those four employment key skill sets for the future are:
Leadership
Interpersonal skills
Flexibility
Emerging technology mastery
Leadership
Are you thinking about how you will learn to become more optimistic (not pessimistic and sarcastic) and a confident initiative taker? Having been a member of management for many years, the companies I worked for were always quicker to lay off (made unemployed) those that lacked initiative (“it’s not my job!”). Very often, we would somehow find a new job for the employee whose job was going away if they were strong in leadership and initiative. Often, “initiative” hurts, as it causes one to work harder with more stress, which is why so many workers do not have it!
Interpersonal Skills
Tomorrow’s career “winners” will need to combine their leadership skills and be better at teaming with others more so than ever before. The rate of specialization is increasing at an increasing rate which necessitates the need to collaborate more effectively than ever to get any job done. Consider reading Thomas Friedman’s The World Is Flat to learn about how specialization and collaboration will continue to increase in any future career. Continue to work on your flexibility and your ability to team successfully with others in all that you do. Don’t be the person who has 5 reasons on why it won’t work, but rather, be the person that can explain to the team the 5 reasons why it will work!
Flexibility
Those that are not “lifetime learners” or those that do not embrace constant learning will soon be unemployed as the rate of constant change in our globalized world will leave them behind. Assess your own tolerance to setbacks and your personal reaction to the need to continuously change directions. If you get “bent out of shape” too easily when your plans go awry, or when you are faced with unforeseen obstacles, it is time to start now, while in high school to change your levels of patience, perserverence, and commitment to success. Flexibility and patience can be learned; it is not genetic and is not linked to toilet training.
Emerging Technology Mastery
Embrace, love, and continuously pursue and integrate the latest in technology into your daily life and education. Tomorrow’s employment and career winners will have “in their blood” the ability to be a technology step ahead from the average worker. Start immediately as it is delusional to avoid being an early adopter today and think you will become an early adopter in the future. Be sure to take a computer science course in your freshman year of college, consistently use your laptop in planning and course work, and be sure to be the one that other students go to for application and technology help.
Let me end this blog by letting you in on a “dirty little secret” known by managers and industry leaders across the globe: when it is time for a promotion or when it is time to reduce the work force due to a slowing business, managers get very creative and are biased towards promoting, or not laying off, those that have majored in LIFE…whether you went to Virginia Tech, Duke, William & Mary, or Georgetown makes little difference in career success in the long run, although it certainly opens more doors in the short run. So sure, aim for that bachelor’s degree or higher in a specialized major that you are passionate about, but don’t forget to double major in LIFE!
Discussion Questions:
Does the above breakdown of unemployment by educational category surprise you? What message, if any, do you take away from these statistics?
Is the LIFE acronoym pursuit valid, in your opinion, as an early focus to help avoid unemployment? Do you think the LIFE major is a necessary, intentional focus/practice along with your college major or do you think the development of these LIFE skills will just progress naturally?
Which area of the LIFE acronym are you strongest at? Weakest?
What percent, based on 100%, do you think becoming unemployed is just “bad luck” or deteriorating business conditions, versus you can help ensure your own employed destiny by continued employment through focus on the LIFE major? Did my “dirty little secret” referenced above make common sense?
The Danish people are a notably generous and happy group of people and for many years they have had the most extensive welfare system in the world. Danish citizens pay nearly 50% incometax, which allows its citizens to enjoy a high quality of life, free education, healthcare and lavish unemployment benefits.
Since the Global Financial Crisis in late 2008 unemployment in Denmark has more than doubled from 1.7% to 4.2% now. This is still far below levels in other parts of Europe, such as Spain with 19% unemployment. The Danish government is however evaluating the level the unemployment benefits, as the government budget tightens. An unemployed worker in Denmark is entitled to an unemployment benefit which is between 70-90% of their prior salary. Currently they can receive this compensation for up to four years.
High unemployment puts two specific strains on the governments budget during a recession. There are decreased tax receipts as workers are forced out of work, but at the same time expenditure on transfer payments to the unemployed workers will simultaneously increase. Therefore a swift rise in unemployment in the recent recession, lead to some governments such as the United Kingdom falling into a deep budget deficit very quickly. The opposite effect occurs in an economic boom where transfer payments fall and tax revenue increase, leading to a swelling of the budget surplus.
Policy makers in Denmark are therefore planning to trim the generous safety net provided to its workers,
Having found that recipients either get work right away or take any job as their checks run out, officials are also redoubling longstanding efforts to move Danes more quickly out of the safety net.
“The cold fact is that the longer you are out of a job, the more difficult it is to get a job,” Claus Hjort Frederiksen, the Danish finance minister, said during an interview. “Four years of unemployment is a luxury we can no longer allow ourselves.”
Statistics from Denmark show that in the Global Financial Crisis of late 2008, 100,000 Danish people were registered as unemployed. Approximately 62% of these people found another job within two months, and only 6% of these people had been unemployed for longer than two years. This highlights the fact that Denmark has a very flexible labour market. Meaning in simple terms, that workers can freely move between jobs, and can be hired and fired more easily than in comparable European nations such as Germany or Sweden. The flexibility and security of the Danish system is nicknamed “flexicurity”. The following comments highlight the elements of the flexicurity culture.
“It’s no surprise the government is saying that programs that are highly expensive and give a Rolls-Royce treatment to citizens have to be trimmed,” said Iain Begg, a professor at the London School of Economics. “So the search will now be on for labor market policies that deliver more people in work with less money, which has an inevitable air of the holy grail about it.”
In Denmark, employers have carte blanche to hire and fire, and in most cases laid-off people are guaranteed about 80 percent of their wages in benefits, a figure capped for high earners. In turn, they must participate in retraining and job placement programs tailored to get them back to work, which the government has intensified.
Each year, a remarkable 30 percent of Danes change jobs, knowing the system will allow them to pay rent and buy food so they can focus on landing a new position. About 80 percent belong to unions, which manage the workplace, help run the unemployment insurance program and press the laid-off into retraining.
If 30% of workers are willing to change jobs each year, this would have a positive effect on the economy. This proportion is high because workers are not scared into becoming unemployed and poor. Some like myself, would consider the opportunity cost of receiving 80% of my previous wage and an unemployed holiday a great trade off. Of course, workers also consider issues such as social dislocation, loss of skills in the decision making process and are therefore keen to get back into work as quickly as possible.
Within Denmark and the flexicurity system; it would suggest that workers are prepared to accept new challenges and develop skills that are required in new jobs. This also opens up jobs to younger graduates each year. During a recession the same system allows firms to reduce thier demand for labour quickly and to restructure the business to the new economic climate. The supporting welfare structures in Denmark which help unemployed people with training and job applications is an important spoke in the system. These elements are considered labour market supply side policies.
Discussion Questions:
Describe the concept of “social safety nets”
If the Danish government continued to allow up to four years unemployment benefit, what could be the potential impacts on the Supply of Labour within Denmark?
Describe why Denmark has the one of the lowest Gini Coefficient scores in the world (0.29, CIA Factbook 2007)
How does labour flexibility or the Danish system of flexicurity, improve economic growth?
Evaluate the relative merits of Denmark having one of the highest income tax rates in the world.
With more than four million Spanish people out of work this week, the eighth largest economy in the world finds itself once more in a perilous position. In the last twelve months the number of unemployed people in Spain has doubled. Spain now has as many unemployed people as France and Italy combined, and the unemployment rate is nearing the historic highs of 1993.
The type of unemployment in an economy can be classified in different ways. The main types are cyclical or demand deficient unemployment but other forms exist such as real-wage unemployment and equilibrium unemployment. Some economists also refer to unemployed people as structural, frictional, seasonally or cyclically unemployed.
From the graph below we can see that unemployment in Spain has been high for at least the last 20 years, compared to other countries within the European Union.
The cause of growing Spanish unemployment in 2008 to 2010 is related to the collapse of the domestic building boom and the wider global recession. In 2006, Spain enjoyed low interest rates and therefore cheap loans, this allowed developers to build new apartment blocks, houses and commercial buildings with a relatively low cost of borrowing. Spanish people could afford mortgages at low interest rates and therefore purchased houses contributing to the building boom. However, when the flow of “cheap money” ran out in mid 2008 the building stopped and the flow on effects of spending dried up. Falling tourism receipts and less foreign investment have also exacerbated the issue leading to unemployment doubling between 2008 – 2010.
We can classify the form of unemployment, illustrated in the Spanish example as demand-deficient unemployment. It is related to a downturn in the economic cycle. This concept is explained below.
#3aEffects and Solutions
The social and economic impacts of 20.7% unemployment are obvious, but the solutions are less so. Climbing unemployment creates two evils; falling tax revenue as workers no longer earn wages and the increased burden of paying benefits to the four million unemployed citizens. In addition, a series of social problems are often intertwined with high unemployment, these include depression; lose of skills, poverty and higher crime rates. Spain therefore has a few problems to solve this summer. Whilst Spanish people may enjoy a summer by the beach, and a glass of sangria, the government will be hitting the books to find a solution to the problem. Here are a few suggests to get the politicians thinking.
Use fiscal stimulus to boost consumer and government spending, thereby increasing the demand for jobs. Spain could plan for a budget deficit (expansionary fiscal policy) and fund spending increases though increased government borrowing. Spain’s current level of public debt is 67% of GDP, which is well below stricken Greece at 124%. However, Spain now has to borrow money from international bondmarkets, which are skeptical about Spain’s ability to pay back this debt. This is despite assurances and favourable rates offered from the European Union this week. Increasing government debt in a period of European financial crisis is a risky option.
Use loose monetary policy (lowering central bank interest rates) to encourage Spanish people to increase their consumer spending through increased borrowing. If you understand the complexities of the European Union, you understand that all 21-member countries use the same currency and follow the lead of one central bank. Despite one country wishing to lower interest rates, other countries may think differently. Europe can be compared to a train rolling along on a set of rails, with 21 separate carriages. Each European country must follow behind the big engine, there is no room to deviate from the central banks interest rates and all of the countries must move together. Many people have wondered how long the European train would run, before one of the carriages derailed.
Force Spanish firms to employ more people. Firms have no requirement to hire more people. They may choose to employ more people but will logically offer everyone lower wages to maintain profitability.
Use supply side policies to bring greater efficiencies to firms though increased on the job training and worker education. This is a long-term solution, which will require large structural adjustments, how Spain produces goods and services and exactly what is does produce. A startling statistic is that the average Spanish university graduate will find their first job at the age of 27, long after they have graduated.
Discussion Questions:
How do economists measure unemployment?
Explain the causes of increased unemployment in Spain?
Explain in a few sentences how expansionary fiscal policy could reduce the rate of unemployment?
How could supply side policies be used to reduce the level of unemployment in Spain?
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.
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.
Year
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
UR
5.5
6.7
5.5
5.7
5.3
4.5
3.8
3.6
3.5
3.7
IR
1.46
1.07
1.2
1.24
1.28
1.59
3.01
2.78
4.27
5.46
As can be seen above, between almost every year of the decade a fall in the inflation rate corresponded with a rise in unemployment. The only exceptions were between 1962 and 1963, when both unemployment and inflation increased slightly, and between 1968 and 1969, when again both variables increased. Phillips’ theory of the trade-off between unemployment and inflation was generally supported throughout most of the decade, as the downward slope of the line in the graph above demonstrates.
Beginning in 1970, however, data for the US began to point to a flaw in the Phillips curve theory. Throughout the decade, both unemployment and inflation rose in the US, as oil exporters in the Middle Ease, united under the Oil Producing and Exporting Countries (OPEC) cartel, placed embargoes on oil exports to the US in retaliation for America’s support of Israel in a war against its Arab neighbors. The resulting supply shock in the US led to energy and petrol demand". Occurs when the price is below the equilibrium level, for example, when a government imposes a price ceiling in a market.');" onmouseout="tooltip.hide();">shortages and rising costs for US firms, forcing businesses to reduce costs by laying off workers, while simultaneously raising output prices. Several other macroeconomic variables contributed to rising unemployment and inflation in the late 1970s, including the return of tens of thousands of troops from the Vietnam War who entered the labor market and found themselves unemployed as firms reduced output in the face of rising energy costs. The Phillips Curve for the 1970s told a somewhat different story about inflation and unemployment than that of the 1960s.
Year
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
UR
4.9
5.9
5.6
4.9
5.6
8.5
7.7
7.1
6.1
5.8
IR
5.84
4.3
3.27
6.16
11.03
9.2
5.75
6.5
7.62
11.22
Between 1973 and 1974, both the unemployment rate and the inflation rate increased significantly, and even as unemployment increased by almost 3% between 1974 and 1975, the inflation rate fell by less than 2% but still remained at nearly 10%. Unlike the 1960s, the 1970s was a decade of both high unemployment AND high inflation. By the end of the decade, unemployment was at approximately the same level as it was in 1963 (5.8%) but inflation was nearly 10 times higher (11.22% in 1979 versus just 1.24% in 1963). The Phillips Curve theory was apparently busted, as the seemingly random scattering of data in the graph above points to no discernible trade-off between unemployment and inflation throughout the 1970s.
Several prominent economists in the 1970s, including Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman, revived the classical view of the macroeconomy which held that policies aimed at managing aggregate demand would ultimately be unsuccessful at decreasing unemployment in the long-run, since a nation’s output and employment would always return to the full-employment level regardless of the level of demand in the economy. Friedman, whose theory of the macroeconomy would come to be known as monetarism, believed that changes in the money supply would lead to inflation or deflation, but no change in unemployment in the long-run. Monetary policy and its effects on aggregate demand and aggregate supply will be explored in more depth in a later chapter in this book. The basic premise of the monetarists, however, was that in order to maintain stable prices and low unemployment, the nation’s money supply should be allowed to grow at a steady rate, corresponding with the desired level of economic growth. Any increase in the money supply aimed at stimulating spending and aggregate demand would result in an increase in inflationary expectations, an increase in nominal wages, and a leftward shift of aggregate supply, resulting only in higher inflation and no change in real output and employment. Therefore, monetary rules were needed to assure that policymakers would not manipulate the supply of money to try and stimulate or contract the level of aggregate demand in the economy.
By the late 1970s, our current interpretation of the Phillips’ theory as including both a short-run and a long-run model became widely adopted. The short-run Phillips Curve may accurately illustrate the trade-off between unemployment and inflation observed in the period of time over which wages and prices are relatively inflexible in a nation’s economy. For instance, during the twelve month period between July 2008 and June 2009, the level of consumption and investment in the US fell as the economy slipped into recession. Unemployment rose and inflation decreased and eventually became negative in the final three months of the period. The graph below shows the relationship between unemployment and inflation during the onset of the recession in 2008 and 2009.
A clear trade-off appears to have existed in the twelve month period above. At the time of writing, it is yet to be seen whether the unemployment rate will return to its pre-recession level in the United States. Although in the short-run it seems likely that the downward sloping Phillips Curve holds some truth, a look at a longer period of time for the same country tells a different story. The graph below shows the unemployment / inflation relationship during the twelve years leading up to the onset of recession in 2008.
Looking at data for a longer period of time shows that even as inflation fluctuated between 0.5% and 4%, US unemployment remained in a relatively narrow range of between 4% and 6%. Year on year unemployment and inflation often increased together, while at other times demonstrated an inverse relationship as Phillips’ theory predicts it should. The narrow range of unemployment portrayed in the data above is evidence that the Long-run Phillips curve for the US between 1997 and 1998 was more like a vertical line than a downward sloping one. It appears that during the period above the natural rate of unemployment for the United States was around 5%; meaning that even as AD increased and decreased in the short-run, the level unemployment remained relatively steady around the natural rate of 5% in the long-run.
The 1970′s represented a turning point in the mainstream economic analysis of the relationship between inflation and unemployment. Demand-management policies by governments may be effective at fine-tuning an economy’s employment level and price level in the short-run, but as data from the 1970′s and early 2000s shows, in the long-run a nation’s level of unemployment tends to be independent of the inflation rate, and is likely to remain around the natural rate of unemployment once wages and prices have adjusted to fluctuations in aggregate demand. In response to supply shocks such as the oil shortages of the 1970′s, both inflation and unemployment may increase at the same time, calling into question the validity of the original Phillips Curve relationship. Despite the breakdown in the relationship between unemployment and inflation in the long-run, the evidence from the recession of 2008 and 2009 seems to support the theory that an economy in which aggregate demand is falling will experience a short-run trade-off between the rate of inflation and the rate of unemployment.
President Obama thinks the key to recovering the millions of American jobs lost during the recession lies in boosting exports to the rest of the world:
The plan sounds great. As we learn in AP and IB Economics, free trade leads to benefits for nations that choose to participate in it. Of course, promoting free trade will harm some industries and workers whose jobs end up being “off-shored” or “out-sourced” to countries with cheaper or more qualified labor; but Obama’s hope is that promoting free trade will result in a net gain of 2 million American jobs.
The goal of doubling US exports in 5 years, however, may be overly ambitious. According to the CIA World Factbook, the US is currently the fourth largest exporter in the world, sending just around $1 trillion worth of goods and services abroad in 2009, behind the EU with $1.9 trillion, China with $1.2 trillion and Germany with $1.18 trillion of exports. Obama’s goal to double US exports would propel the US to the single largest exporting nation in the world, putting it right around where the 27 nations of the European Union are today.
To achieve his goal, Obama proposals include three strategies for boosting demand and supply of US exports.
On the supply side he suggests continuing recent guarantees for payment by foreign buyers. Essentially such a scheme reduces the risks that often accompany international commerce, reducing the “costs” of exporting firms, which in essence increases the supply of exports from the US.
On the demand side the US must pressure China to revalue its currency. A stronger RMB (and a weaker dollar) will increase China’s demand for US goods and services.
Also on the demand side, the US should push through free trade agreements with South Korea, Panama and Columbia, which have encountered obstacles among US lawmakers who fear that more free trade may actually mean a loss of US jobs.
Free trade agreements, export payment guarantees and a weaker US dollar in China will help Obama reach his goal. Chances are, however, that it will ultimately be unattainable. Doubling US exports would propel the US to the top of the list of exporting countries, surpassing even China, today’s current leader, by $700 billion more than the country exported last year. The impact on US GDP would undoubtedly be enormous, adding upwards of $1 trillion to the US economy.
Creating jobs through trade is controversial, as many Americans still believe trade is partially to blame for the loss of American jobs in recent years.
“The average voter in the U.S. has been pretty on the fence about whether they want more trade coming into the United States,” Slaughter says. “The income pressures that a lot of households have faced in recent years have sort of shifted that balance where more voters now are a lot more wary of globalization than they used to be.”
While his goal is lofty, Obama is on the right track towards growing the US economy and promoting job creation. Trade benefits Americans not just because it will increase demand for our goods and services abroad, but because it will lead to lower prices for many of the things we enjoy consuming at home, ultimately increasing real incomes in America while also creating jobs.
The graph below presents a simple explanation of how the above strategies can result in more jobs in US export industries.
Discussion Questions:
How does China manipulate the value of its currency? Why is such manipulation harmful to US exporters?
How does a government payment guarantee for exporters actually reduce the costs of doing business for US exporting firms?
Do you believe that more free trade agreements with countries like South Korea and Panama will create jobs or destroy jobs in the United States? Explain.
What is the goal of fiscal stimulus during a recession? Is it simply to increase nation’s total income by a certain amount determined by how much a government increases its own spending by? If this were the case, then an $800 billion stimulus package, like the one begun this year in the US, would lead to a total increase in national income of, well, exactly $800 billion.
While such an outcome is possible, it is not the desired outcome of the Obama administration and the economists who have supported the use of expansionary fiscal policy during economic downturns (i.e. the Keynesian school of economists). Keynesians expect that an initial increase in government spending (or a decrease in taxes) will result in households and firms increasing their own consumption and investment, meaning successive increases in spending. The initial change in spending ultimately gets multiplied through further rounds of spending. The total change in national income resulting from an initial change in government spending or taxes depends on the size of the fiscal multiplier. Now, this is where things get tricky! From the Economist:
The size of the multiplier is bound to vary according to economic conditions. For an economy operating at full capacity, the fiscal multiplier should be zero. Since there are no spare resources, any increase in government demand would just replace spending elsewhere. But in a recession, when workers and factories lie idle, a fiscal boost can increase overall demand. And if the initial stimulus triggers a cascade of expenditure among consumers and businesses, the multiplier can be well above one.
The above scenario, where an economy is operating below full-employment and government spending puts the nation’s idle resources to work, creates new income and further increases private spending, is precisely what the Obama team and its economists hope will happen in the US economy soon. A multiplier of above one means the $800 billion will ultimately increase America’s national income by something greater than $800 billion!
The multiplier is also likely to vary according to the type of fiscal action. Government spending on building a bridge may have a bigger multiplier than a tax cut if consumers save a portion of their tax windfall. A tax cut targeted at poorer people may have a bigger impact on spending than one for the affluent, since poorer folk tend to spend a higher share of their income.
Crucially, the overall size of the fiscal multiplier also depends on how people react to higher government borrowing. If the government’s actions bolster confidence and revive animal spirits, the multiplier could rise as demand goes up and private investment is “crowded in”. But if interest rates climb in response to government borrowing then some private investment that would otherwise have occurred could get “crowded out”. And if consumers expect higher future taxes in order to finance new government borrowing, they could spend less today. All that would reduce the fiscal multiplier, potentially to below zero.
Herein lies the controversy about the effectiveness of deficit-financed fiscal stimulus. Several posts on this blog have focused on the neo-classical, supply-side economists’ fears that expansionary fiscal policy financed by government borrowing will drive up interest rates to private borrowers, thereby “crowding-out” private investment, off-setting any expansion in output achieved through government spending. In the Keynesian model, however, it is precisely because interest rates have bottomed out at the “zero bound” (according to Paul Krugman) that government borrowing and spending will not lead to crowding-out, rather could actually increase investors’ willingness to spend (their “animal spirits”) on new capital, actually “crowding-in” private investment.
Alas, the debate continues. The ironic thing is that even years from now, after all of Obama’s stimulus money has been spent, and the US economy is either fully recovered or it is not, we still won’t know how large the fiscal multiplier was, since tomorrow’s economists will find it nearly impossible to isolate the variable of the $800 billion of government spending and determine just how much of America’s growth in income can be attributed to government spending, and how much resulted from automatic stabilizers built-in to help the economy recover on its own during recessions.
Discussion Questions:
Why do tax cuts for the rich tend to have a smaller multiplier effect than tax cuts for lower income households?
How can government borrowing drive up interest rates, and why is this a concern to policy makers deciding on the size of a fiscal stimulus package?
What are the animal spirits the article mentions? Where have you heard this expression before?
Do you think borrowing trillions of dollars and spending it to put people back to work and try to dig the US economy out of recession is wise, or should the US government be practicing better fiscal responsibility?
I remember my 9th grade history class, when we learned about how so many thousands of Chinese immigrated to the American west to build the railroads. My textbook had a picture that looked like this:
Well, that was 130 years ago. Today, the world is a very different place. America, once the land of opportunity, has shed hundreds of thousands of jobs a month for 18 months straight. Unemployment, near 10%, has driven the economy into its deepest recession since the 1930s, trade is grossly imbalanced, as are federal budgets, and national debt has inched ever closer to 100% of GDP. All in all, things are pretty gloomy.
Someday, ninth grade history students may look in their textbooks and read a different story about the early 21st Century. In the future, they may see pictures like this in their history books:
That’s right, today the land of opportunity is China, and hundreds of thousands of foreigners, including thousands of Americans, are packing their bags for the “Middle Kingdom” in search of work.
Young foreigners… are coming to China to look for work in its unfamiliar but less bleak economy, driven by the worst job markets in decades in the United States, Europe and some Asian countries.
Many do basic work such as teaching English, a service in demand from Chinese businesspeople and students. But a growing number are arriving with skills and experience in computers, finance and other fields.
“China is really the land of opportunity now, compared to their home countries,” said Chris Watkins, manager for China and Hong Kong of MRI China Group, a headhunting firm. “This includes college graduates as well as maybe more established businesspeople, entrepreneurs and executives from companies around the world.”
Some 217,000 foreigners held work permits at the end of 2008, up from 210,000 a year earlier, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Thousands more use temporary business visas and go abroad regularly to renew them.
Some foreigners see China not just as a refuge but as a source of opportunities they might not get at home.
Konstantin Schamber, a 27-year-old German, passed up possible jobs at home to become business manager for a Beijing law firm, where he is the only foreign employee.
“I believe China is the same place as the United States used to be in the 1930s that attracts a lot of people who’d like to have either money or career opportunities,” Schamber said.
There’s a lot of talk in America today, on the news, on the radio, in the papers, about whether the US economy will ever return to “normal”. Unemployment is nearly 10%, and some economists think it may take years for it to fall below 10% once more.
I guess the good news is, if Americans start heading to China in ever larger numbers to find work, the number of people looking for work in the US will fall, leading to lower unemployment. Of course, that’s not how the US wants to bring down unemployment, nor is it good for the nation’s long-run growth potential if high skilled workers go abroad to find jobs. But it does raise a very important question: Will America be the land of opportunity in the future? Or will its tired, huddled masses become the “boat people” of the 21st Century, seeking employment on distant shores.
Full disclosure here: I myself have only worked as a teacher abroad, including in China! And to be honest, it is because the demand for my skills is clearly greater overseas than it is at home! My income is far higher abroad than I could earn in an American public school, and my services and skills are valued much greater in the international setting, particularly in Asia!
