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SELF-CORRECTION, MARKET: The automatic process through which markets adjust from disequilibrium to equilibrium. Pointy-headed economists really like markets, even more than they like Englebert Humperdink. The reason is that markets have a built-in self correction mechanism. If a market is in equilibrium, it remains there until the cows come home. But if it's NOT in equilibrium, if it is in disequilibrium, it moves back. This means that no one (read this as government) needs to lord over markets, night and day, to ensure that they work. To reach an exchange that's mutually agreeable to both buyers and sellers, the buyers and sellers just need to be left alone (that is. laissez faire).

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Lesson Contents
Unit 1: Instability
  • Overview
  • Business Cycles
  • Expansionary Good Times
  • Contractionary Bad Times
  • Unit 1 Summary
  • Unit 2: A Simple Cycle
  • Long-Run Trend
  • Contraction
  • Trough
  • Expansion
  • Peak
  • Unit 2 Summary
  • Unit 3: Measurement
  • Indicators
  • Leading
  • Coincident
  • Lagging
  • Unit 3 Summary
  • Unit 4: Causes
  • Complexity
  • Investment
  • The Process
  • Politics
  • The Process
  • Unit 4 Summary
  • Unit 5: Policies
  • Options
  • Expansionary
  • Contractionary
  • Unit 5 Summary
  • Course Home
    Business Cycles

    To purpose of this lesson is to examine the nature and causes of macroeconomic instability, which goes by the handy title business cycles. Business cycles are the recurring expansions and contractions of economic activity that generate the problems of unemployment and inflation. This lesson explores how business cycles can be stabilized with the goal of lessening unemployment and inflation.

    • The notion of business cycles is introduced in the first unit of this lesson, with an eye on what they are and why they are important to study.
    • The four components of a standard, simple business cycle -- expansion, peak, contraction, and trough -- are then presented and discussed in the second unit.
    • The third unit is devoted to several key measures of business cycle activity, especially leading, lagging, and coincident indicators.
    • A couple of the most often discussed causes of business-cycle instability -- investment and politics -- are discussed in the fourth unit.
    • The fifth unit closes out this lesson with an introduction to the expansionary and contractionary economic policies used to stabilize business cycles.

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    AGGREGATE EXPENDITURES

    The total expenditures on gross domestic product undertaken in a given time period by the four sectors--household, business, government, and foreign. Expenditures made by each of these sectors are commonly termed consumption expenditures, investment expenditures, government purchases, and net exports. Aggregate expenditures (AE) are a cornerstone in the study of macroeconomics, playing critical roles in Keynesian economics, aggregate market analysis, and to a lesser degree, monetarism. In particular, aggregate expenditures are combined with the price level as aggregate demand.

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    APLS

    BROWN PRAGMATOX
    [What's This?]

    Today, you are likely to spend a great deal of time at a flea market seeking to buy either a travel case for you toothbrush or a looseleaf notebook binder. Be on the lookout for letters from the Internal Revenue Service.
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    This isn't me! What am I?

    Cyrus McCormick not only invented the reaper for harvesting grain, he also invented the installment payment for selling his reaper.
    "Nobody can be successful unless he loves his work. "

    -- David Sarnoff, TV pioneer

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