Week 3 Homework - Macroeconomics

Homework: Chapter 5: # 1, 6, 8, and 13

1- Why do national income accountants compare the market value of the total outputs in various years rather than actual physical volumes of production? What problem is posed by any comparison over time of the market values of various total outputs? How is this problem resolved?

Answer: If it is impossible to summarize oranges and apples as one statistic, as the saying goes, it is surely even more impossible to add oranges and, say, computers. If the production of oranges increases by 100 percent and that of computers by 10 percent, it does not make any sense to add the 100 percent to the 10 percent, and then divide by 2 to get the average and say total production has increased by 55 percent.

Since oranges and computers have different values, the quantities of each commodity are multiplied by their values or prices. Adding together all the results of the price times quantity figures leads to the aggregate figure showing the total value of all the final goods and services produced in the economy. Thus, to return to oranges and computers, if the value of orange production increases by 100 percent from $100 million to $200 million, while that of computers increases 10 percent from $2 billion to $2.2 billion, we can see that total production has increased from $2.1 billion (= $100 million + $2 billion) to $2.4 billion (= $200 million + $2.2 billion). This is an increase of 14.29 percent [= ($2.4 billion $2.1 billion)/$2.1 billion)]—and not the 55 percent incorrectly derived earlier.

Comparing market values over time has the disadvantage that prices change. If the market value in year 2 is 10 percent greater than in year 1, we cannot say the economy’s production has increased 10 percent. It depends on what has been happening to prices; on whether the economy has been experiencing inflation or deflation.

To resolve this problem, statisticians deflate (in the case of inflation) or inflate (in the case of deflation)...