Economics 53 - Macroeconomics
Assignment 1

Reviewing National Income Data

 

Very good and current macroeconomic data is found at the federal government’s Bureau of Economic Analysis web site at http://www.bea.gov/index.htm.

 

Look over some of the data on this site to see what is there. This is where some of the data used for this class is drawn from

 

After doing this, take the following steps:

 

  1. From the home page, under National select Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
  2. On the page that appears, select Interactive Tables: GDP and the National Income and Product Accounts Tables.
  3. On the next page select list of Selected NIPA Tables.
  4. On the next page select Table 1.1.5 Gross Domestic Product (A) (Q)
  5. Experiment with this table to see how you can compare quarterly and annual data for the NIPA GDP accounts. Peruse these accounts to see the relative importance of these categories. We will talk about this in class.
  6. Now go back and select Table 1.1.6 Real Gross Domestic Product, Chained Dollars, and select the quarterly data from 2006 to 2010Q3. This is inflation-adjusted GDP. Compare the 5 quarters beginning with the 3rd quarter of 2008 of Gross Domestic Product, Personal Consumption Expenditures, and Gross Private Domestic Investment to the quarters immediately preceding. This is called a recession. Do you understand why?

 

Look through these NIPA accounts and see if you can determine the answer to the two questions below.  One more of these questions will be asked on the first mid-term exam.  The answers will not be discussed in class.

 

Note: The questions below all refer to the quarterly data for the most recent four quarters shown (data shown for each quarter are annualized). In all cases set the time period from 2006 to 2010.:

 

  1. From Table 1.1.6, which category of Gross Private Domestic Investment fell the most in percentage terms? How great was the fall? Has it recovered?
  2. From Table 1.1.5 what was the size of annual GDP for the U.S. economy and what was the size of the personal consumption component?
  3. Using the same technique as above to find Table 2.3.5 Personal Consumption Expenditures by Major Type of Product, what was the largest sub-category of spending for consumer Durable Goods in the 1st quarter of 2006? What happened to that category of spending in the 2008?
  4. Again using Table 2.3.5, which category shown is the largest for Services expenditures and which is a close second? Does this surprise you?
  5. Using Table 2.1 Personal Income and Its Distribution, when did Wage and Salary Disbursements begin to turn down? Has it fully recovered?
  6. When you look at exports and imports in Table 4.1 Foreign Transactions in the National Income and Product Accounts, what sort of picture emerges?
  7. As measured by price indexes in Table 2.3.4 (where 2005 equals 100, so the higher the number the higher the rate of inflation since 2005), when you look at the sub-categories of personal consumption expenditures, which category of spending has experienceded the most relative price inflation (the higher the number, the higher the level of relative price inflation)?