Saturday Quiz – December 4, 2010

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 five questions. Your results are only known to you and no records are retained.

Quiz #89

• 1. A sovereign national government can run a balanced budget over the business cycle (peak to peak) as long as it accepts that after all the spending adjustments are exhausted that the private domestic balance will only be in surplus if the external balance is in surplus.
• Maybe, if private sector indebtedness is low.
• False
• True
• 2. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) demonstrates that mass unemployment can arise from workers demanding nominal wage growth in excess of inflation. That is, excessive real wages can cause unemployment.
• Maybe
• False
• True
• 3. A Eurozone nation that runs a persistent current account deficit cannot sustain rising living standards over time given that the ECB chooses to maintain rigid control of the inflation rate.
• True
• False
• Unlikely
• 4. A rising wage share in GDP requires nominal wages to grow faster than inflation.
• Maybe
• False
• True
• 5. Premium question: Imagine that macroeconomic policy is geared towards keeping real GDP growth on trend. Assume this rate of growth is 3 per cent per annum. If labour productivity is growing at 2 per cent per annum and the labour force is growing at 1.5 per cent per annum and the average working week is constant in hours, then the policy-driven trend will lead to a falling unemployment rate.
• Maybe, depending on what is happening to aggregate demand.
• True
• False

Sorry, quiz 89 is now closed.

You can find the answers and discussion here