Tracking America's Economy [Hardcover]

This completely revised and updated edition of Norman Frumkin's acclaimed work offers vital information for the urgent growing debate on the state of the nation's economy. Frumkin makes complex ideas and statistical data accessible to people without special training in economics. His goal in this book is to provide a better understanding of the performance of the American economy, and a basis for evaluating proposals intended to influence its future course. Using data current through the first half of 2003, Frumkin focuses on the meaning and use of a wide array of indicators of economic growth, employment, wages, productivity, investment, saving, and finance in assessing the current state of the U.S. economy and forecasting future developments. Equally useful for economists, students, investors, journalists, and anyone concerned with the economy, this totally revised edition includes detailed coverage of many important new topics, such as terrorism's impact on the economy, federal debt and interest rates, job openings and unemployment, government spending and taxes, the 2001 recession, and more.1. Attributes of Economic Indicators; Business Cycles; Seasonality; Index Numbers; Data Accuracy; Calculating and Presenting Growth Rates Price-Adjusted Dollars; The Underground Economy; Distinctions Among Goods, Services, and Structures The Production of Economic Statistics; Data Integrity; Review Questions; Notes 2. Framework for Macroeconomic Analysis, Policies, and Forecasting; Analytic System; Fiscal, Monetary, and Incomes Policies; Humphrey-Hawkins Act; Unemployment and Inflation Goals: Fiscal and Monetary; Policies; Incomes Policies; Review Questions; Notes 3. Economic Growth; GDP Methodology; Analysis of Trends; Assessment of Economic Growth in the First Decade of the 21st Century An Action Plan; Review Questions; Notes 4. Household Income and Expenditure; Methodology; Analysis of Trends; Consumer Optimism and Pessimism Opinion Surveys; Review Questions; Notes 5l³-