Here are the answers with discussion for yesterday’s quiz. The information provided should help you understand the reasoning behind the answers. If you haven’t already done the Quiz from yesterday then have a go at it before you read the answers. I hope this helps you develop an understanding of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and its application to macroeconomic thinking. Comments as usual welcome, especially if I have made an error.
Welcome to the Billy Blog Saturday Quiz. The quiz tests whether you have been paying attention over the last seven days. See how you go with the following questions. Your results are only known to you and no records are retained.
I am now using Friday’s blog space to provide draft versions of the Modern Monetary Theory textbook that I am writing with my colleague and friend Randy Wray. We expect to complete the text during 2013 (to be ready in draft form for second semester teaching). Comments are always welcome. Remember this is a textbook aimed at undergraduate students and so the writing will be different from my usual blog free-for-all. Note also that the text I post is just the work I am doing by way of the first draft so the material posted will not represent the complete text. Further it will change once the two of us have edited it.
Yesterday (July 31, 2013), the US Bureau of Economic Analysis – published the – US National Income and Product Accounts – for the June-quarter 2013 (the advanced estimates – subject to later revision). The US economy continues to grow but at a fairly sluggish pace. There will no significant incursions into the unemployment rate as a result of this performance. There was a slowdown in the contractionary impact of the fiscal drag coming from the government sector with the federal government’s negative contribution being reduced and a positive contribution to growth from State and local government spending (a rare event these days). There is still a huge output gap in the US (my estimate – around 10 per cent) and no signs of an inflationary surge. Combining that information with the parlous state of the labour market indicates that the US federal government should be increasing their net spending rather significantly at present.
The title is stolen from the UK Guardian article (July 29, 2013) – If you think you know what ‘debt’ is, read on – by one Alex Andreou. The title suggests he knows the real issues regarding public and private debt. We will see if he does. This is Part 10 in the theme – When you’ve got friends like this. Which should tell you that the article is full of misinformation even though the motivation is sound. This article is another example of progressive macroeconomic discourse which is essentially trapped in mainstream macroeconomics. The simple point is that a truly progressive social agenda has to be grounded in solid macroeconomic principles. Trying to carve out a progressive agenda within a mainstream macroeconomic framework undermines the credibility of the former and plays straight into the hands of the conservatives. So “If you think you know what ‘debt’ is, read on”.
So the UK grew by 0.6 per cent in the June-quarter 2013 on a seasonally-adjusted basis. The conservatives are crowing as hard as they can that fiscal austerity has cleared the decks for a private sector recovery. We believe them of-course because the economy grew by 0.6 per cent. Right? Wrong. We don’t believe them. The fact is that the budget deficit rose in the last year and the annualised growth of the government and other services sector to growth has been positive in the last two quarters after a sharp contraction in the fourth quarter of 2012. On July 25, 2013, the British Office of National Statistics released its latest National Accounts data in the form of – Gross Domestic Product Preliminary Estimate, Q2 2013. The data release comes on the back of another ONS release – Public Sector Finances, June 2013 – which showed that budget deficit and public borrowing rose over the 12 months to June 2013. So the direction in public net spending is up and that is the opposite direction to the intended fiscal austerity.
The debates that are played out in the parliaments around the world at present about the state of public finances are not new. The debates, which are amplified by the media who typically do not understand the issues involved yet mostly take a conservative position because they can sell more products (papers, on-line access etc) that way, appear to be pressing and all sorts of emergency language is used. The characters who write these doomsday scenarios mustn’t ever reflect on what they say from one day to another relative to the historical record. Their arguments against the use of budget deficits and invoking doomsday scenarios regarding public debt reduction are not new. Given many of these conservatives are also into the bible (pushing evangelical diatribe) they might have reflected on – Ecclesiastes 1:9 – which noted that “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun”. Indeed not. One character in history with a penchant for religion (Mormonism) however had some insights in the operations of government budgets and public debt. He was also a long-time former Chairman of the Board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve System.
Here are the answers with discussion for yesterday’s quiz. The information provided should help you work out why you missed a question or three! If you haven’t already done the Quiz from yesterday then have a go at it before you read the answers. I hope this helps you develop an understanding of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and its application to macroeconomic thinking. Comments as usual welcome, especially if I have made an error.
Welcome to the Billy Blog Saturday Quiz. The quiz tests whether you have been paying attention over the last seven days. See how you go with the following questions. Your results are only known to you and no records are retained.
I am now using Friday’s blog space to provide draft versions of the Modern Monetary Theory textbook that I am writing with my colleague and friend Randy Wray. We expect to complete the text during 2013 (to be ready in draft form for second semester teaching). Comments are always welcome. Remember this is a textbook aimed at undergraduate students and so the writing will be different from my usual blog free-for-all. Note also that the text I post is just the work I am doing by way of the first draft so the material posted will not represent the complete text. Further it will change once the two of us have edited it.