Economics

Economics The US economy experienced a sharp recession during 2008 and 2009. Your task is to describe the recession’s causes, and critically assess it within a “liquidity trap” framework. Instructions Post a slideshow with a maximum of five to eight slides that present your analysis. Base your analysis explicitly on the “liquidity trap” versions of either IS/LM or AS/AD as developed throughout the textbook until chapter 9. Include at least one data chart – i.e. from FRED (Links to an external site.), BEA (Links to an external site.), FED (Links to an external site.), BLS (Links to an external site.) or another source of official data – that you have created in a spreadsheet program. (Do not use the chart ‘produced’ by FRED!) Pay attention to structure and clarity of your argument; pay attention to grammar and style! Carefully format the slideshow, and save it as a PDF – upload will be restricted to PDF files. (With standard slideshow programs such as Powerpoint you can “save as” PDF; if you are using TeX, for example, PDF is standard output format.) Motivation As with our previous economic analysis project, imagine that you work in a research institute, think tank or consulting firm that has been asked to produce a report on the above question, that you are the lead economist to write the report, and that you will have to report your findings (summarized in the slideshow) to the general public in a news conference. As usually, you will be asked to peer review other contributions. Skill development Critical thinking Skills -- You deepen your understanding of the material, and based on that critically assess, summarize and apply it. You learn to argue within the framework of an economic model. (See as well our course objectives on the syllabus.) Computer Skills -- You learn to produce a “professional” report that includes graphics that you have produced. You practice to download data series and create a chart and learn to integrate these in the slideshow.