E USE OF GOVERNMENT SPENDING CHANGES VERSUS TAX CHANGES AS A MEANS OF INFLUENCING THE COURSE OF THE ECONOMY

• COMPARE AND CONTRAST THE USE OF GOVERNMENT SPENDING CHANGES VERSUS TAX CHANGES AS A MEANS OF INFLUENCING THE COURSE OF THE ECONOMY. IS ONE OR THE OTHER PREFERABLE IN SPECIFIC SITUATIONS? WHAT WOULD BE THE LIMITATIONS OF FISCAL POLICY?

Job Search Theory to Unemployment

Answer any three (3) of the following four (4) questions in any order that you wish. If you submit four (4) questions, the first four (4) answers in order will be marked.

• Explain the “JOB SEARCH THEORY” and its relevance to unemployment. How would an increase in Employment Insurance[1] benefits affect the Job Search Theory?
• Define the five labour market themes from the twentieth century in Canada. Explain how two of these themes evolved over the past 120 years.
• Explain the effect of wage elasticity of demand on unionization. What effect would improved technology have on unions and unionized workers?
• Explain why and how a company must make the decision to either employ workers or contract out labour services. How would legislation to enforce mandatory minimum paid sick leave affect the choic

Reimbursement

Healthcare economics are affected by the push and pull of three participants: the payer, the provider, and the consumer. Consider this example:

You work full time for your employer who provides vision insurance as a benefit. Your contribution is $5 a month or $60 a year. Your employer contribution is $10 a month for each employee enrolled.

You find yourself in need of new glasses and have fallen in love with the designer $600 frames. Your copay on glasses is 20% for one pair of glasses so your out-of-pocket cost is $120. For your new glasses, the insurance company has to pay the $300 difference between what they collected from you, your employer, and your copay.

Clearly, the insurance company cannot do this for every employee every year so they increase rates, which means your employer must increase your contribution as well. In addition, the insurance company adds purchase limits on the maximum it will pay for new glasses or how often it will do so, say once every 2 years.

Consider this scenario as it applies to other healthcare costs, copays, and contributions. If we can demand to have the most expensive healthcare solutions, and only pay our co-pay, that impacts insurance companies, employers, businesses, and other patients.

In this Discussion, you will consider the point of view of each party-the payer, the provider, and the consumer-and reflect on the impact of health insurance and reimbursement on behaviors.

To Prepare:

• You will be assigned to one of the following three perspectives by your Instructor for this Discussion

• • Healthcare consumer
• Reflect from the perspective of your assigned role, on how healthcare reimbursement programs, the demand to improve quality outcomes, and access to healthcare impacts utilization and under-utilization in the healthcare market.

Post a comprehensive response that includes the following:

• Describe the perspective you were assigned.
• Give at least one example of how health insurance may affect healthcare costs, reimbursement, healthcare access, and utilization. Be specific about how health insurance impacts each concept.
• Explain how aspects of healthcare costs, reimbursement, healthcare access, and utilization might affect experiences with healthcare for the perspective you were assigned. Explain.
• Be sure to support your Discussion with a reference to course materials or a reference within the last three years.

 Offshoring of Good and Services

Question 1 (5 Points): This question is based on the Offshoring of Good and Services

Consider a simplified offshoring model with two countries Home and Foreign and two activities, Components and R&D. Components is low-skilled labor intensive-whereas R&D is high-skilled labor-intensive. The final good produced is Mphone. The costs of capital and trade are uniform across production activities. The wage structure in Home (H) and Foreign (F) for low-skilled labor (L) and high-skilled labor (H) is as follows:

Home: WHL = 30,000, WHH = 90,000 and Foreign: WFL = 1,000, WFH = 5,000

1. Which country has the higher relative wage of low-skilled labor? (1 points)
2. Suppose the two countries engage in trade. Which activity will Home offshore, and why?(2 points)
3. By opening to trade, the Home finds that it can import the components more cheaply thanit could produce on its own (due to lower world-relative price of components). Draw a diagram to illustrate the gains to Home from offshoring. (2 points)

Question 2 (5 Points): This question is based on the Specific Factor (Short Run) Model

A. What do you know about NAFTA? (1 point)
B. Why did the free trade agreement between US and Mexico face some opposition. whereas this was not the case with the free trade agreement between Canada and US. Explain the reasons in the light of your understanding of the concepts of interindustry and intraindustry trade studied in chapter 6. (4 points)

Inflation Rates

Assignment 2: Final Report

Due Week 9, worth 175 points

This assignment is aligned to this course outcome:

• Apply macroeconomic concepts to current and personal economic events and decisions.

In addition to writing about macroeconomic concepts, it’s equally important to be able to convey your understanding of these concepts by communicating them to others. In the workplace you might do this by writing briefs (like you did for Assignment 1), creating presentations, or writing reports for your manager or team. An example final report and optional template are provided below.

For this Final Report assignment, you can build off your previous economic brief and selected industry from Assignment 1, or you can select another industry such as Finance and Insurance, Health Care, or Manufacturing, and examine one of the macroeconomic indicators or policies below:

• GDP growth
• Unemployment rates
• Inflation rates
• Interest rates
• Imports and exports
• Government fiscal policy and issues related to taxation, government spending, and budget deficits
• FED (central bank) monetary policy and issues related to the FED’s mission to stabilize the economy

Example Final Report, Assignment 2 Template, Strayer Writing Standards

1. Review an example final report.
2. Use the optional template to help you get started.
3. Review the Strayer Writing Standards. (See Instructions below.)

Instructions

Use Microsoft Word to prepare a Final Report that is a minimum of two to three (2-3) pages long in which you:

1. Introduce your selected industry with a brief one-paragraph introduction. Refer to the NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) to review the details about your industry.

2. Assess your selected industry’s size and/or growth rate in the economy.

These macroeconomic resources will help you find the size and growth rate of your industry relative to real U.S. GDP:

• Real GDP – Select Section 1, then table 1.1.6 (select MODIFY to change the year range and frequency). Data is from Bureau of Economic Analysis (bea.gov).

• % Change in Real GDP – Select Section 1, then table 1.1.1 (select MODIFY to change the year range and frequency). Data is from Bureau of Economic Analysis (bea.gov).

• GDP by Industry – Steps:

1. Select “Interactive Data.”
2. Select “Industry Data Tables.”
3. Select “Begin Using the Data.”
4. Select “Gross Output by Industry.”
5. Select “Real Gross Output by Industry (A) (Q).”
6. Select “Quarterly” or “Annual.”
7. Select “Next Step.” Data is from Bureau of Economic Analysis (bea.gov).

• % Change in GDP by Industry – Steps:

1. Select “Interactive Data.”
2. Select “Industry Data Tables.”
3. Select “Begin Using the Data.”
4. Select “Gross Output by Industry.”
5. Select “Percent Changes in Chain-Type Quantity Indexes for Gross Output by Industry (A) (Q).”
6. Select “Quarterly” or “Annual.”
7. Select “Next Step.” Data is from Bureau of Economic Analysis (bea.gov).

3. Identify one newsworthy macroeconomic indicator or policy (e.g., GDP, unemployment, inflation rates, interest rates, government taxation and spending decisions, and/or FED decisions) that the industry should monitor and explain why it’s important and how it might impact your selected industry.

These resources are available to help you measure and track macroeconomic indicators and outcomes of macroeconomic policies.You’ll use one or more depending on the macroeconomic indicator selected.

• Unemployment rates – Data is from Bureau of Labor Statistics (bls.gov).

• Inflation rates as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Data is from Bureau of Labor Statistics (bls.gov).

• % Change in Real Exports and Imports – Select Section 4, then table 4.2.1. (Select MODIFY to change the year range and frequency.) Data is from Bureau of Economic Analysis (bea.gov).

• Government receipts, expenditures, and savings – Select Section 3, then table 3.1 for total government and table for 3.2 for federal government. (Select MODIFY to change the year range and frequency.) Data is from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (bea.gov).

• FED Funds Interest Rates. Data is from Trading Economics (tradingeconomics.com).

4. Describe a recent trend in the macroeconomic indicator or policy. Include a graph, chart, or table that illustrates the observed trend.

5. Summarize how you think this industry will perform in the future. Provide support for your rationale.

6. This course requires use of Strayer Writing Standards (SWS). The format is different compared to other Strayer University courses. Please take a moment to review the SWS documentation for details. (Note: You’ll be prompted to enter your Blackboard login credentials to view these standards.)