Chater Openning Questions

A manager needs to monitor: The prices of major inputs and its outputs

The facts about inflation

Inflation and federal reserve policy

The Phillips Curve shows an inverse correlation between () and () using data from 1861 - 1958. It implies the Fed could achieve low unemployment at the cost of high inflation.

The Phillips Curve broke down in the 1970s when workers started demanding higher wages expecting higher inflation. Higher wages pushed up the production cost, decreasing production and employment.

Long-term growth and inflation

The major takeaways I got from this is that inflation will ruin growth in the long-term. Increases and wages and its pay will not increase entirely because of inflation.

Business decisions and profit squeezes

prices of inputs and outputs

It’s easier to pass on costs increases when the following is true:

  1. Competitors are facing the same cost increases.
  2. Expanding service bundles
  3. Your customers can, in turn, pass the cost increases along to their customers.

Inflation clauses in long-term contracts

Inflation clauses in long-term contracts allows there to be an adjustment to prices at an annual or even immediate situation because of inflation.

How accurate are our measures of inflation?

If we were to use the CPI / the consumer price index that will give us the best and most accurate way to be able to measure the rate of inflation

Summing up

A business for whom raw materials constitute a major cost should hedge against the risk of sharp increases in the price of raw materials by:

  1. locking in purchase prices,
  2. Reconstitute selling prices
  3. and building an early warning system.

Economic terms

Explain each of the following terms in your own words. The author explains the terms in the textbook. If necessary, you may also Google the term on the Web. Good resources include:

Explain the terms in your own words briefly.

Inflation

Inflation is when there is an increase in price which then makes a dollar bill not worth its value anymore

Consumer Price Index (CPI)

Consumer Price Index is when there is a change in price over a period of time and the customer will then have to pay it off.

Producer Price Index (PPI)

Producer Price Index is when there is a change in price and a business has to pay it

The Phillips Curve

The Phillips Curve is what we use to be able to show the relationship between unployment rates and inflation

Stagflation

Stagflation is when then the economic growth is going slow, but there is a high rate of unemployment as well as inflation

Economic events

Describe the characteristics of the following events briefly.

The Phillips Curve in the 1970s

The author writes the Phillips Curve broke down in the 1970s. Elaborate.

There was inaccuracies with-in the Phillips Curve that was coming up consistently causing a trend which then had people calling on a question to figure out how legitimate was the curve in accuracy.