Tugas Pertemuan 11
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Discuss the effects of potential output and input costs on aggregate supply.
2. Distinguish between aggregate supply in the short and long runs from both the
Keynesian and classical perspectives.
3. Record the general maxim known as Okun’s Law and explain how it can be used to
translate changes in GDP to changes in unemployment. Relate its importance to a
growing economy and the notion that “an economy has to keep running just to stand
still.”
4. Relate any firsthand experience that you might have had with unemployment. If you
have been fortunate enough to avoid a firsthand experience, hypothesize what it
would have been like if the “primary breadwinner” of your family had been
unemployed for 3 months, 6 months, 1 year or longer.
5. Outline precisely how the unemployment rate is computed and discuss any
problems that you see with either the procedure or its results.
6. From your perspective, is the distinction between voluntary unemployment and
involuntary unemployment at all significant? Is the distinction important from the
perspective of designing national economic policy?
7. Why do you think the rate of unemployment is so unevenly distributed across
various social and economic groups of people? Why is the unemployment rate
higher for blacks than for whites? For women than for men? For teenagers than for
older citizens? For people living in Michigan than for people living in Connecticut?
Are there policy implications to any of your answers to these questions?
8. When recession appears, unemployment rates across demographic groups seem to
climb in sync. Why do you think this is so? When expansion starts, though, rates fall
more slowly for some groups than they do for others. Why do you think this is so?