Saturday Quiz – December 1, 2012

December 1, 2012
bill
Saturday quiz
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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.

Quiz #193

1. At present all the Eurozone member nations face insolvency risk. If any one of them left the Eurozone and re-established its own currency, re-denominated all euro liabilities into their own currency, then they would eliminate that risk on all future liabilities.

False
True

2. Nations that run large external surpluses can usually maintain economic growth and satisfy the desire of the private domestic sector to save overall while running budget surpluses. By accumulating those budget surpluses in a sovereign fund, the government can create more space for non-inflationary spending in the future once the resource wealth dissipates and the external sector moves into deficit.

False
True

3. The estimates of structural budget deficits by multilateral agencies such as the IMF and the OECD, will usually lead one to conclude that a government's discretionary fiscal position is more expansionary than it actually is.

False
True

4. Only one of the following propositions is possible (with all balances expressed as a per cent of GDP):

A nation can run a current account deficit accompanied by a government sector surplus of equal proportion to GDP, while the private domestic sector is spending less than they are earning.
A nation can run a current account deficit accompanied by a government sector surplus of equal proportion to GDP, while the private domestic sector is spending more than they are earning.
A nation can run a current account deficit with a government sector surplus that is larger, while the private domestic sector is spending less than they are earning.
None of the above are possible as they all defy the sectoral balances accounting identity.

5. Premium Question: Under current institutional arrangements, the change in the ratio of public debt to GDP will exactly equal the primary deficit plus the interest service payments on the outstanding stock of debt both expressed as ratios to GDP minus the changes in the monetary base arising from official foreign exchange transactions.