ch 17
What effect does expansionary monetary policy have on equilibrium if consumers have rational expectations ?
A movement from point A to point C
What is the Fed doing to increase the credibility of its policies?
A. Announcing the federal funds target rate. B. Whenever a change in policy is announced, the change actually takes place.
According to many economists and policymakers, what other options does the Fed have to improve its credibility with workers, firms, and investors?
A. Following the Taylor rule. B. Following a rules strategy. C. Following a discretion strategy. D. All of the above.
Paul Volcker is credited largely with which of the following?
A. The "Volcker disinflation." B. Fighting inflation by reducing the growth of the money supply.
Indicate the two main objections to the idea that the short-run Phillips curve is vertical.
B. Workers and firms might not have rational expectations. Your answer is correct. C. Contracts with workers keep wages sticky.
As of 1993, the Fed sets targets for which of the following in order to achieve price stability and high employment?
Federal funds rate
Why doesn't the Phillips curve represent a permanent trade-off between unemployment and inflation in the long run?
In the long run, aggregate supply is vertical
The Phillips curve was developed by A.W. Phillips in 1957 and shows the relationship between unemployment and inflation. The curve, shown at the right, indicates what type of relationship between the two variables?
Inverse relationship
When SRAS 1 shifts to SRAS 2 the price level increases and the level of real GDP falls. What happens to the short-run Phillips curve when the short-run aggregate supply curve shifts (a supply shock)?
It shifts up such that a given level of unemployment occurs at a higher price level.
In the figure to the right, at what point is the inflation rate stable? That is, at what point can we refer to the inflation rate as the nonaccelerating inflation rate of unemployment ?
The moral of the vertical long-run inflation rate is that in the long run, there is no trade-off between the unemployment rate and the inflation rate. The inflation rate is stable only if the unemployment rate equals the natural rate of unemployment (point C). It is often called the nonaccelerating inflation rate of unemployment: the unemployment rate at which the inflation rate has no tendency to increase or decrease. If the unemployment rate is below the natural rate (point A), the inflation rate increases, and, eventually, the Phillips curve shifts up. If the unemployment rate is above the natural rate (point B), the inflation rate decreases, and, eventually, the Phillips curve shifts down.
In the figure to the right, expected inflation is initially at 1.5%. When expected inflation increases to 4.5%, which of the following will occur?
To have 3.5% unemployment rate, inflation would be 7.5%. B. Unemployment reaches the natural rate of 5%. C. At the natural rate of unemployment, inflation is 4.5%. D. All of the above.
Economists who believed that the Phillips curve represented a structural relationship believed that the curve represented
a permanent trade-off between unemployment and inflation
If actual inflation is higher than expected inflation, the
actual real wage is less than the expected real wage: unemployment falls
Alan Greenspan
agreed with Paul Volcker about the importance of keeping inflation low.
Models that use factors, such as technology shocks, to explain fluctuations in real GDP instead of changes in the money supply are called
real business cycle models
If, in the long run, real GDP returns to its potential level, then in the long run
the Phillips curve is vertical