Econ Final Exam Practice Qs/As – Flashcards

Unlock all answers in this set

Unlock answers
question
If macroeconomic policy has been successful over time, it is likely that the economy has not seen:
answer
any severe recessions.
question
The term human capital describes:
answer
the improvement in labor created by education and knowledge that is embodied in the workforce.
question
Real GDP tends to understate our economic well-being because it:
answer
excludes the value of leisure.
question
One of the most important types of infrastructure that a government can provide is:
answer
basic health measures such as a clean water supply and disease control.
question
The threat of future inflation:
answer
makes people reluctant to lend money for long periods.
question
If the cost of a market basket is $200 in year 1 and $230 in year 2, the price index for year 2 using year 1 as the base is:
answer
115.
question
Which of the following is an example of an intermediate good?
answer
tires purchased from Goodyear by General Motors for newly produced electric cars.
question
You read in the newspaper that the CPI in 2011 was 120. You conclude that a typical market basket in 2011 would have cost:
answer
20% more than the same market basket purchased in the base year.
question
What do a rubbernecking traffic jam and the paradox of thrift have in common?
answer
In both cases, individual behavior has large negative consequences for the whole of society.
question
Technological change:
answer
increases total factor productivity.
question
What is long-run economic growth, and why is it so important for a nation's economy?
answer
Long-run economic growth is the sustained rise in the quantity of goods and services the economy produces. When long-run growth per capita is rising, each person's share of the nation's output is rising. This is the key to higher wages and a rising standard of living.
question
Many impoverished nations struggle with diseases like malaria. How would reduction or elimination of malaria contribute to long-run economic growth?
answer
We might consider a healthier population to be an improvement in the nation's infrastructure and in human capital, both of which increase long-term productivity. If the nation's public health system is better equipped to prevent and cure illnesses, its population can be more productive. A working adult who is healthier misses fewer days of work and is thus more productive. A healthier child misses fewer days of school and thus acquires a better education and is a more productive adult.
question
When inflation rises quickly:
answer
lenders will be hurt and borrowers will benefit.
question
Real GDP is the same as:
answer
inflation-adjusted GDP.
question
The modern tools of macroeconomic policy are:
answer
fiscal policy and monetary policy.
question
For each of the following transactions, explain why they would or would not be counted in the GDP of the United States. a. American auto producer Ford builds a factory in Alberta, Canada. b. You buy a blueberry muffin at your local coffee shop. c. A Ford dealership in Ohio has 15 unsold new 2011 model cars at the end of 2011.
answer
a. No. This is investment spending but not in the United States, so it does not count in U.S. GDP. b. Yes. This is consumer spending. c. Yes. These unsold cars would be counted as unsold inventory in investment spending.
question
Economic recessions tend to be ___________, and economic expansions tend to be ___________.
answer
short; long.
question
If output is growing at 5% annually, how many years will it take for output to quadruple?
answer
28 years.
question
The nominal interest rate equals the:
answer
real interest rate plus the rate of inflation.
question
If a country has a trade deficit, does it indicate that the country has a serious problem?
answer
No. Trade deficits occur when a country's investment spending is higher than its level of saving.
question
Structural unemployment consists of people who are unemployed because of:
answer
more people seeking jobs in a labor market than there are jobs available at the current wage rate.
question
Workers today are more productive than workers in the past because:
answer
workers now have more physical capital embodying better technology.
question
Explain the difference between shoe-leather costs of inflation and menu costs of inflation.
answer
Shoe-leather costs are the costs of spending valuable time and resources to search for lower prices or making more trips to and from the bank. A menu cost is the cost of frequently changing and posting new prices of goods and services.
question
Which of the following questions is appropriate to the study of microeconomics? A) How does the aggregate price level affect overall consumer spending? B) How does the level of interest rates affect investment spending? C) How much will Sony charge for the new game system to be introduced later this year? D) How does the GDP affect overall government spending?
answer
How much will Sony charge for the new game system to be introduced later this year?
question
If the actual unemployment rate is 7% and the natural rate of unemployment is 5%, then the cyclical unemployment rate is:
answer
2%.
question
Economists say that long-run economic growth is almost entirely due to:
answer
rising productivity.
question
Consider an economy that produces only two goods: DVDs and DVD players. If 10 DVDs are sold at $20 each and 5 DVD players are sold at $100 each, then nominal GDP is:
answer
$700.
question
If the CPI changes from 120 to 125 between December 2009 and December 2010, the:
answer
inflation rate for 2010 is 4.2%.
question
According to the Rule of 70, if a country's real GDP per capita grows at an annual rate of 2% instead of 3%, it will take _____ for that country to double its level of real GDP per capita.
answer
11.67 additional years.
question
In a typical business cycle, the peak is immediately followed by the:
answer
recession.
question
A person who is not working and is not looking for work is:
answer
not counted in the unemployment statistics.
question
An open economy:
answer
trades goods and services with other countries.
question
The inflation-adjusted measure of aggregate output typically used by economists is called:
answer
real gross domestic product.
question
A jobless recovery is considered:
answer
a period when real GDP is rising but the level of unemployment is not decreasing.
question
The formula for the Rule of 70, where n is number of years and r is growth rate, is expressed as:
answer
n × r = 70.
question
Nation A's real GDP increased from $100 billion to $106 billion from 2010 to 2011. Nation A's population grew from 50 million to 51 million from 2010 to 2011. The annual growth rate in real GDP per capita in nation A was approximately:
answer
4%.
question
In the United States, recessions are typically associated with:
answer
a decrease in the percentage of Americans with health insurance.
question
The reason the dollar value of only final goods and services are counted in GDP is that:
answer
if we counted the value of all goods, we would count inputs, like the value of steel in a new automobile, more than once.
question
Which of the following statements is true? A) Those who are not working but who have looked for work in the past year are unemployed. B) The labor force is the total number of people working plus those who are unemployed. C) The unemployment rate is the number of people unemployed expressed as a percentage of the population. D) The labor force is the same as the population.
answer
The labor force is the total number of people working plus those who are unemployed.
question
Rising high school graduation rates are an example of an increase in:
answer
human capital.
question
Anna recently moved to Boston because her husband, Joe, was to begin a new job as an economics professor at Harvard. Anna is an experienced surgeon who is interviewing with several hospitals in Boston. Anna is:
answer
frictionally unemployed.
question
When the unemployment rate is very low, most of the unemployment tends to be:
answer
frictional.
question
The official unemployment rate reported by the government may tend to understate the amount of unemployment because it:
answer
excludes discouraged workers, who are not actively seeking employment.
question
Explain what is meant by the paradox of thrift.
answer
During uncertain economic times, nervous consumers spend less and save more. This thriftiness can actually worsen the economy because it stifles consumption and leads to reduced spending overall.
question
Enchanté Inc., a designer clothing company, buys $400 worth of silk from a silk trader and $30 worth of accessories from Accessories R Us to produce each dress. If the value added by Enchanté is equal to $200, then according to the value-added approach, the price of the designer dress should be:
answer
$630.
question
A negative slope of the labor demand curve occurs because:
answer
employers are willing to hire more people at lower wages.
question
Which of the following will not increase the productivity of labor?
answer
an increase in the size of the labor force.
question
If we add up all of the values added at every stage of production for a good, we will get:
answer
the final value of the good.
question
Long-run economic growth is:
answer
higher in countries with a strong rule of law and political stability.
Get an explanation on any task
Get unstuck with the help of our AI assistant in seconds
New