Product Overview

The "big three" performance variables?growth in real GDP, inflation rate, and unemployment rate?are important starting points for delving into the macroeconomics of any country. This note offers some brief background on the policy environment surrounding performance reporting in the United States and the Eurozone; exhibits show historical performance on each of the big three variables for both. Students are asked to relate important events in the world economy to the path of the three variables from 1999 through mid-2009. Differences in performance in each country/region over time and differences among the regions are also requested in the assignment questions.

Learning Objectives

To facilitate analysis of fundamentally important data on the macroeconomies of the United States, the Eurozone, or any country. To relate broad economic events--tech bubble, recessions, and the housing bubble--to the interpretation of data.