Public Finance and Taxation

Notice as you read the various pieces that there is disagreement

over how to analyze the long-term impact of the recession—which also influences

how you assess the recovery.

 Through the various readings (and there are a fair number that are New York

Times articles on assessing the recession and the recovery, these are mostly

between 1-4 pages in length) pay attention to the unevenness of the recovery—

parts of the country affected differently, different demographic groups also

affected differently, for example.

 In your essay how to do you analyze the recession and the recovery that has

followed. In your essay there are two terms you should try to understand and

incorporate into your writing: structural unemployment and gini ratio (or gini

coefficient).

GUIDELINES (to summarize)

1) Address the following: How do you analyze the recession and the recovery

that has followed.

2) The terms structural unemployment and gini ratio (or gini coefficient)

should be discussed

3) As part of your essay, why do you think it is so hard to reach a consensus on

how to understand the recovery that we are currently going through.