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CHAPTER
20
Unemployment
and Inflation
Define the unemployment rate, the labor force participation rate, and the
employmentpopulation ratio and understand how they are computed.
Measuring Unemployment
Labor force: The sum of employed and unemployed workers in the
economy.
Figure 20.1
Unemployment Rate
Based on the CPS estimates,
we calculate several important
macroeconomic indicators.
The most-watched is the
unemployment rate:
Number of unemployed
100 Unemployment rate
Labor force
11.3 million
100 7.3%
155.5 million
Figure 20.1
Figure 20.3
Trends in the labor
force: participation
rates of adult men and
women since 1948
Making
the
Connection
Figure 20.4
Unemployment
rates in the
United States,
August 2013
10
11
5,752,000
New establishments
1,299,000
5,180,000
Closing establishments
1,203,000
Table 20.2
Establishments
creating and
eliminating jobs,
SeptemberDecember 2012
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Types of Unemployment
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Frictional Unemployment
Frictional unemployment: Short-term unemployment that arises
from the process of matching workers with jobs.
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Structural Unemployment
Structural unemployment: Unemployment that arises from a
persistent mismatch between the skills and attributes of workers and
the requirements of jobs.
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Cyclical Unemployment
Cyclical unemployment: Unemployment causes by a business cycle
recession.
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Explaining Unemployment
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Unemployment Insurance
Suppose you have just lost your job. You want to find another, and
have two main options:
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Inflation-adjusted
minimum wage
2013
Year
Relatively few full-time adults earn minimum wage. The group most
likely to receive minimum wage is teenagers.
How much unemployment does the minimum wage really cause?
Economists are uncertain, but believe it to be relatively small.
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Labor Unions
Labor unions are organizations of workers that bargain with
employers for higher wages and better working conditions.
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Efficiency Wages
Efficiency wage: An above-market wage that a firm pays to increase
workers productivity.
Firms want to get the best performance they can out of their workers.
Sometimes monitoring workers is difficult or costly; an alternative is to
pay them a relatively high wage, making them motivated to perform
well in order to keep their job.
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Measuring Inflation
Define price level and inflation rate and understand how they are computed.
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We refer to the percentage increase in the price level from one year
to the next as the inflation rate.
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The CPI in the current year is the cost to purchase the basket of
goods this year, divided by the cost in the base year. By convention,
we multiply this by 100, so that the CPI in the base year is 100.
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Product
Quantity
2014
Price
Expenditures
(on base-year
quantities)
$100.00
$85.00
$85.00
15.00
300.00
14.00
280.00
25.00
500.00
27.50
550.00
Price
Expenditures
Price
$50.00
$50.00
$100.00
Pizzas
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10.00
200.00
Books
20
25.00
500.00
Eye
examinations
TOTAL
$750.00
2015
Expenditures
(on base-year
quantities)
$900.00
$915.00
The table above gives the information we need to create the CPI
in 2014 and 2015, using the basket of goods from 1999.
Formula
Applied to 2014
$900
100 120
$750
Applied to 2015
$915
100 122
$750
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Applied to 2014
$900
100 120
$750
Applied to 2015
$915
100 122
$750
Based on these data, the inflation rate from 2014 to 2015 is the
percentage change in the CPI:
122 120
100 1.7%
120
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CPI in 1987
230
$25,000
$50,000
114
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Nominal Average
Hourly Earnings
CPI
(19821984 = 100)
2013
$27.00
233
$11.59
2018
27.00
260 (est)
10.38
100 10.4%
$
11
.
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Distinguish between the nominal interest rate and the real interest rate.
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We can adjust for inflation by calculating the real interest rate, equal
to the nominal interest rate minus the inflation rate. (Note: this is an
approximation, but it is quite accurate for low interest and inflation
rates.)
If prices rise by 2% from this year to next, then your real interest rate
on the loan is only 4%. This more accurately reflects the cost of
borrowing and lending money.
2015 Pearson Education, Inc.
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Figure 20.8
Notice that in 2009, the real interest rate was above the nominal
interest rate. This was because the change in the CPI was negative
then, indicating a rare deflation, or decrease in the price level.
2015 Pearson Education, Inc.
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Is Inflation a Problem?
Sometimes inflation seems unimportant. After all, if all prices doubled
overnight, it seems like nothing much would change: the prices of
goods and services would have doubled, but so would your wage; so
you could afford exactly as much as before.
But there are some less obvious problems with inflation. For example,
inflation affects the distribution of income and wealth
It is unlikely that everyones wages would increase at the same
rate. Many people have long-term contracts specifying their wage
in nominal terms, for example.
Also, nominal assets like cash decrease in value when there is
significant inflation. If you hold much of your wealth in cash, then
inflation causes a significant decrease in real wealth for you.
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On the other hand, if banks lend money at a low rate and then high
inflation takes place, the real interest rate they receive may be zero or
negative; thus the risk of inflation makes banks wary of lending.
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