ch宏观经济学导论.ppt

* This slide and the next contain a list of some topical issues that macro can help students understand. Feel free to substitute others as new issues emerge. * * Second, the economy doesn’t always grow smoothly: over the short run, the economy sometimes experiences periods of falling GDP, called recessions. What students see in this graph as little downward blips correspond to periods during which hundreds of thousands of workers lose their jobs. Periods of rising GDP are called “expansions.” In March 2001, the U.S. completed the longest expansion on record. When the economy is expanding, firms are producing more goods and services, and therefore hiring more workers. Consumer incomes are rising, and consumers are spending more. * * Source: Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison, The Deindustrialization of America (New York: Basic Books, 1982), Chapter 3, cited in Robert J. Gordon, Macroeconomics, 4th edition (Boston: Little, Brown and Company), p.334. If you know of more recent estimates, please email me so I can update this slide!!! Thanks! (My email address is jpingfei@) It might be useful to briefly define the unemployment rate so that students will be able to understand this and the next few slides. * * * * * * * * * * * * Macroeconomics helps students understand forces that will affect their financial well-being. Here’s an example. When the unemployment rate is rising, tens or hundreds of thousands of people are losing their jobs. Hopefully our students will not be among them. But the rising unemployment rate even affects those who don’t lose their jobs. As the graph shows, during most years there is a clear negative relationship between the (12-month) change in unemployment and the annual growth rate of real wages. In plain English, rising unemployment is associated with falling (and often negative) wage growth. So when the economy goes into recession, even if our students get to keep their jobs, they will find it much harder t