Measuring the Economy: Sample Quiz

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1. What does the "I" in CPI stand for?

Investment
Inflation
Index
Imports

2. What do the letters GDP mean to an economist?

Gross Dollar Production
Gradually Declining Profit
Gross Domestic Product
Great Day for Party

Crusoe lives by himself on an island where he consumes only three goods. Using his knowledge of economics, he has constructed the following table to measure what is happening to his cost of living. The table shows that he uses three times as many coconuts as fish, and twice as many bananas as coconuts. He does not use money, but he still has the cost of time. The third column shows how long it took to produce a single item in period 1, and the fourth column shows his costs per item in period two.

Item
Number Used
Cost in Period 1
Cost in Period 2
Bananas
6
5 minutes
6 minutes
Coconuts
3
10 minutes
10 minutes
Fish
1
40 minutes
54 minutes

3. By how much has his cost of living index increased from period one to period two?

16.67%
20%
27%
75%
over 100%

4. The unemployment rate and many other economic series are seasonally adjusted. Seasonal adjustment means that:

the predictable, seasonal movements are taken out.
the series are updated and revised periodically during the year.
the series often have considerable erratic movement in them, and one must look at several months of the data to get a clear picture of what they say.
there are time lags involved in collecting and calculating the numbers used in the series.

Answer the next three questions using these data from Mythical County, somewhere in the United States.

Under 16 years old

800

In jail

50

In nursing homes

150

Retired (living at home)

200

Full-time housewives

200

Full-time students over 16 years old

400

Employed full time

700

Employed part time

300

Without work and searching for a job

200


Population

3000

(No one is counted twice in the above table, so the numbers sum to the population.)

5. The labor force for this county is:

2200. 2000. 1400. 1200. 1000.

6. The Department of Labor would include how many in the category "Not in the Labor Force"?

2000 1400 1200 1000 800

7. The unemployment rate in this county is:

6.7%. 10%. 16.7%. 20%. 25%.



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Copyright Robert Schenk