宏观经济学——monitiring jobs and inflation(全英文版).ppt

* * * * CPI biases—concrete illustrations. New goods bias can be illustrated with MP3 music rather than CDs; quality change with computers and cars; commodity substitution with movies versus videos; and outlet substitution by the growth of Wal-mart, Target, and shopping on the internet. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Identifying frictional, structural, and cyclical unemployment. Ask your class if anyone they know has been laid off. Then discuss whether losing a job creates frictional, structural, or cyclical unemployment. Look at your local examples. If you live in a steel-producing area, for example, you can talk about local structural unemployment arising from the closing of a steel manufacturer due to international competition. For cyclical unemployment, ask students how they think the business cycle and cyclical unemployment is related to full-time enrollments at higher education institutions. Students often don’t think there is any relationship. But nationally during a recession, the growth rate of full-time enrollments increases. Ask students if they can explain this relationship. The answer is that during a recession and due to the increase in cyclical unemployment, the opportunity cost of school decreases. This is a great way to keep students thinking about marginal benefits and costs. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The CPI—an average. It is important for students to understand that the CPI is based on the average expenditure basket, not the expenditure pattern of any given household. Displaying the detailed press releases on the BLS Web site helps make this point very forcibly: students often do not realize until they see the numbers that the CPI must include both costs of owning a house and costs of renting one; costs of buying a car and costs of public transportation; and so on. * * * * Making the CPI personal. If you have time (or want to make time) you can get your students to construct their own CPI basket. Each student makes a statement of her/his exp