Econ 104_week 2_chapter 5 (100%)

Chapter 5 Assignment

A friend of yours has just returned from desert island where she was stranded alone since January 2008. Having completed Econ. 104 just prior to arriving on the desert island (and being naturally curious), she asks you the following questions: What happened in the last 6 years? 1) By how much has GDP (and Real GDP) changed, and have there been significant changes in the internal composition of GDP? 2) How has total employment and unemployment changed for the country as a whole? 3) Is international trade more or less important (how have exports and imports changed, especially as a share of GDP)? 4) Have there been any recessions in the last 6 years, and if so, what happened? 5) Finally, what are the near-term prospects for the US economy? 

Prepare a briefing (general guideline: minimum 250 words, maximum 500 words) for your friend in response to any Four of these FIVE questions (and any other crucial developments that you think she should be made aware of).

As I noted earlier, the web site for the BEA is: http://www.bea.gov. The GDP tables that will help you the most (within this site) can be found at Interactive National Income and Product Accounts Data. Table 1.1.5, Table 1.1.10, and Table 1.1.6 should be the most helpful. [Note that you will have to set the period of time that you want the table to display.] To save you some trouble (and to make certain we are all using the same GDP data), I have created three tables that should helpful to you: 

BEA Table 1.1.5 Annual GDP 2008-2013.pdf; 

BEA Table 1.1.6 Real GDP Chained Dollars 2008-2013.pdf

BEA Table 1.1.10 Percentage Shares of GDP 2008-2013.pdf

Notice that the third table shows the relative size of each contributing component of GDP in each year. You may see some interesting changes here. In addition, national data for total employment and total unemployment can be found at: National Employment and Unemployment Data 2004-2014.xlsx.

[The other items your friend asks about: the financial panic of 2008, the great recession, current economic prospects, etc. I leave to your own ingenuity. I hope that you have some fun with this. I hope that it is interesting to you to see how much change can occur in a period as short as 6 years.]