You are now familiar with economic theories and analyses to think like an economist. I’d like you to use this knowledge to bring the course to a close.
A. Provide a written assessment of the current state of the U.S. economy. Base your assessment on reputable media sources (e.g., The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Time, major network news, etc.) as well as data obtained from government websites (e.g., www.bls.gov, www.bea.gov, websites for the Federal Reserve Bank and each of the 12 district banks). Questions to consider:
- Using a macroeconomics demand/supply analysis, where do you think current output is relative to what the economy is capable of producing?
- Look at recent trends in the data.
- What are economists saying in media reports?
- What is economic growth currently?
- What is the current inflation rate?
- What is the current unemployment rate?
- What are the recent trends in the components of aggregate demand (consumption spending, investment spending, government purchases, and exports and imports?
- What monetary policy implementations has the Federal Reserve Bank recently undertaken?
B. Based on your assessment of the current state of the U.S. economy, what recommendations would you suggest for fiscal policy and monetary policy and why?
Details of the written assignment:
- You may chose the style/format…..that is, you can write a business memo, a newspaper article, a magazine article, a college research paper, etc.
- The length is open. I am NOT expecting a long research paper. Rather, I hope that you have gotten a lot out of this course and this is an opportunity for you to express yourself as an educated economist.
- The report should be written as a Microsoft Word-file. Submit your assignment in the Assignments area in Brightspace. Your submission will be processed by Turnitin.com.
- Academic honesty is expected. Please refer to the Marist College Student Handbook for the College policy on academic honesty.
- The assignment is worth a maximum credit of 100 CD$. Credit will be based upon supporting information (judged according to relevance, timeliness, and accuracy), your interpretation of the information, and your policy recommendations which should be consistent with your assessment. Do not just give me a collection of statistics….. you should include statistical data but more importantly, please interpret the information.
- CD$ may be deducted for the following:
- Lack of neatness, organization, or consistency
- Grammatical, spelling, or punctuation errors
- Inappropriate or omitted citations – all sources and references need to be correctly cited!
- Use of colloquial language and slang
- Misuse of economics concepts and terminology