Purpose of Assignment 

This assignment addresses how both monetary and fiscal policies have been used during the so-called Great Recession, which began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009, to the present to moderate the business cycle. 

Assignment Steps 

Create a minimum 10- to 12-slide PowerPoint presentation, including detailed speaker notes, in which you analyze your choice of one the following markets or industries:

·         The housing market

·         Financial markets

·         Commodity and stock markets

·         An industry of your choice, such as the automobile industry, the airline industry, retail trade, or any other major industry that suffered heavy losses during the Great Recession 

Your analysis will extend from the beginning of the Great Recession, which was December 2007, to the present and should include the following:

·         An Excel workbook with the following datasets:

·         One dataset related to the U.S. housing industry such as housing starts, the FHFA housing price index, or another dataset of your choice related to the housing market.

·         One dataset related to personal or household income or to personal or household saving.

·         One dataset related to the labor market such as the unemployment rate, initial claims for unemployment insurance, or another dataset of your choice related to the U.S. labor force.

·         One dataset related to production and business activity within the market or industry you choose to analyze.

·         Find your datasets by using different internet data sources, including, but not limited to, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis's FRED site, U.S. Dept. of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), U.S. Dept. of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Census Bureau, and The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Using data results analyze the economic and sociological forces that drove the market equilibrium to unsustainable heights, commonly referred to as "bubbles," and the shocks that brought the markets back down.

·         Discuss specific changes in supply and demand within the markets and/or industries you chose to analyze.

·         Determine whether specialization of industry had any influence on the impact of the recession.

·         Examine prior government policies and legislation that might have exacerbated the impact of the shocks. Also, discuss government actions/regulations that might be undertaken, and/or have been undertaken, to moderate the effects of extreme economic fluctuations.

·         Evaluate the actions of the federal government (fiscal policy) and the Federal Reserve (monetary policy) to restore the economy and foster economic growth. Base your evaluation on information available at Internet sources such as, but not limited to, the Fed's The Economy Crisis and Response website as well as other appropriate sources found on the Internet and in the University Library. Be sure you address the effectiveness of those counter-cyclical policies.