Ask an Economist
Welcome to Ask an Economist, a public service of the Department of Economics at Iowa State University, designed to answer your economic questions.
Our talented faculty and alumni can answer questions on a variety of economic topics to help you make more informed choices about your day-to-day decisions--or to just add a more reasoned voice when talk of the economy comes up around the dinner table.
Questions & Answers
Your understanding is correct that government debt is “good” in the sense that it serves as a useful tool for conducting both monetary and fiscal policy.
I think it is important in establishing policy to work from facts and not perceptions. While rural towns are getting smaller on average, not all are.
It is useful to begin by noting that Nebraska has a higher proportion of its population living in urban areas (73%) than Iowa (64%).
Various measures of the U.S. labor market are prepared and published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), U.S. Department of Labor.
Governors really do not create jobs. Their departments of economic development, as well as other departments, may provide assistance, subsidies, and other types of aid to industries, but they do not create the jobs.
The nominal interest rate associated with an asset (for example, a deposit in an interest-bearing savings account) is the rate at which the dollar value of the asset increases over time.
Your understanding is correct that government debt allows governments to handle economic recessions better.
The national debt of the US is the amount owed by the US federal government and is the value of the Treasury securities that have been issued primarily by the Treasury and which are outstanding at that point of time.
If minimum wage laws were repealed, the vast majority of U.S. workers would not have their wages impacted.
To answer this question, it is critical to agree on the definition of "market failure." In what follows, by "market failure" we will mean a situation where a free market fails to provide an efficient allocation of goods and services (i.e., risk...
Economists distinguish broadly among three types of goods along the private to public continuum. Purely private goods are purchased and used by individuals and families.
The writer of this question understands economics and the market failure associated with externalities very well. Thank you for such an informed and interesting question!
As for the high price of apartments in China's big cities, I believe the supply and demand play the main role.
Under the gold system, either gold circulates as money, or there is a fixed relationship between the amount of currency in circulation and the amount of gold, given the dollar price of gold.
The event that you are referring to is what economists call recessions. During recessions, GDP drops or grows significantly below normal times for a period of usually less than two years. Recessions are dreaded by many but not all economists.
"I read a summary of perfect competition which said that: 1. All market participants have perfect knowledge."
The local mussel farm has a cost advantage in supplying in its own town mostly because it saves on transportation costs. Even with that cost advantage, the local firm may not be able to fully exert monopoly power on the local market.
As noted, when the Federal Reserve changes the amount of “monetary stimulus” in the economy, it tends to push inflation and employment in the same direction.
Unfortunately data are not readily available on the percent of hog firms using forward contracting or options.
That’s an astute observation. As you say, $5 billion divided by $300 per family in poverty suggests there are about 17 million families in poverty. But the Census data cited in the CBO report indicate far fewer families in poverty.
Are your students economists? If so, it will be difficult to fashion a legitimate bumper sticker in support of the minimum wage. Boehner’s quote is called the “Law of Demand” in economics. You might use:
The current federal minimum wage for workers in covered sectors is $7.25 an hour.
First, the characterization of foodservice and restaurant workers as a career track is inaccurate. The median age of restaurant workers is 28.4 years, the second youngest sector of our economy (next to retail shoe stores at 24 years).
A “reduced-form” analysis, also often referred to as “non-structural” analysis, is the most common kind of econometric analysis performed by economists.
The problem of underfunded pension plans is complex. Some possible economic effects are as follows.