Notes
The Phillips curve
- The short-run Phillips curve (SRPC) shows a trade-off: lower unemployment comes with higher inflation, and vice versa. Moving along it corresponds to AD shifting.
- The long-run Phillips curve (LRPC) is vertical at the natural rate of unemployment. In the long run, there's no trade-off.
- A shift in SRAS shifts the SRPC (a negative supply shock shifts SRPC right: higher inflation and unemployment).
- Inflation expectations shift the SRPC: if people expect more inflation, SRPC shifts up.
Money, growth and inflation
- Quantity theory of money: $MV = PQ$ (money supply × velocity = price level × real output). If $V$ and $Q$ are stable, increasing $M$ raises $P$.
- In the long run, money is neutral: changes in the money supply affect prices but not real output.
- Printing money too fast can cause hyperinflation.
Deficits and debt
- A budget deficit happens when spending exceeds tax revenue in a year. The national debt is the total of past deficits.
- Large deficits can raise interest rates (crowding out), reducing investment and long-run growth.
Economic growth
- Long-run growth comes from more physical capital, human capital (education and skills), technology, and natural resources. Growth shifts LRAS and the PPC outward.
- Productivity (output per worker) is the key to rising living standards.
- Supply-side policies (tax incentives for investment, education, research) aim to increase long-run aggregate supply.
Practice
Lower unemployment comes with higher inflation in the short run.
There's no long-run trade-off.
Both inflation and unemployment rise.
More money chasing the same goods raises prices.
It's a stock, while the deficit is a yearly flow.
Human capital raises productivity.
Potential output rises.
Expectations get built into wages and prices.
Free response
Write your answer first, then open the scoring guide.
Free-response question
The government increases spending, financed by borrowing.
(a) Show the effect on the loanable funds market (describe it).
Show the answer and scoring guide
Demand for loanable funds shifts right, so the real interest rate rises.
Check off the points you earned:
(b) Explain how this could affect private investment.
Show the answer and scoring guide
Higher real interest rates make borrowing more expensive, so businesses invest less (crowding out).
Check off the points you earned:
(c) Explain how reduced private investment could affect long-run economic growth.
Show the answer and scoring guide
Less investment means less new physical capital, so productivity grows more slowly, and LRAS shifts out less than it otherwise would.
Check off the points you earned: