Economics Scavenger Hunt
Economics Scavenger Hunt
A. Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
- Find the GDP for the United States currently. (Hint: Here is a great site: http://www.bea.gov/ )This should the yearly GDP for 2011 as well as current estimates for the quarter.
- Find past information to diagnose what the trend is for the GDP from the past. How would you describe the current trend of the US GDP?
- Check out NationMaster at http://www.nationmaster.com/cat/eco-economy to find GDP figures for other countries. How would you describe the GDP of the United States compared to other places?
B. Inflation
- Using http://www.bls.gov/, find the current measure of inflation in the U.S. as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
- What impact does this have on businesses in the U.S.?
- If you spent $100 in 2018 on school supplies, what would the equivalent have been in 1984 if adjusted for inflation? (Hint: Click HERE. )
- Using a general search engine, find the inflation rate of another country,the state of New Hampshire, or a local area.
C. Productivity & Employment
- Using the Bureau of Labor Statistics from the last section, find a measure of the productivity rates in the United States.
- Using the same site, find the level of unemployment for both the United States and New Hampshire.
D. Fiscal Policy
- What is the current amount of money projected to be taken in with taxes by the Federal Government? (Hint: Check the overview on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_United_States_federal_budget ) The official site is: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/about.html
- What is the current amount projected to be spent by the U.S. in 2012?
- Is there a shortage or surplus projected for 2011?
- What is the current federal debt? Search for the U.S. National Debt Clock for an interesting response. You can also type in http://brillig.com/debt_clock )
- Find the same type of information for the state of Wisconsin. (Hint: http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/State_budget_issues,_2009-2010 )
E. Monetary Policy
- Go to the Fed site Fed101 at http://www.federalreserveeducation.org/fed101/policy/ . This site describes how the Federal Reserve System operates and has an extensive section on economic indicators. List one thing that you learned that you didn’t know.
- Using information from the Federal Reserve Board at http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/, find the current measure of M2. (Hint: Look for Money stock measures) This is a measure of how much money is in our U.S. economy.
- Follow the previous link for Federal Reserve, find the current interest rate. (This is under Interest rates and federal funds rate. You can also check the prime loan rate. )
- Using the Federal Reserve site or a news search tool like Google, find the projected rate of increase or decrease for interest rates for the U.S.
F. General
- In general, how would you describe the current economy of the United States?
- The USA Today maintains a website that reviews our economy and profiles some economic indicators at http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/economic-outlook.htm?loc=interstitialskip. Pick two indicators and describe how they affect the economy and what the projection is for the U.S.
- Using http://money.cnn.com/news/economy/index.html or another news source, find one event that is impacting the U.S. or local economy. Explain what the event is and how it will affect the economy.
- Using news reports and the information you have found, what is the projection for our economy