Business Economics articles from October 1997

Business Economics archives from October 1997

Is it time to forget about the deficit? (obstacles to decreasing federal budget deficit)(includes effects of the retirement of baby boomers to entitlement programs)
October 1, 1997... One of the most remarkable recent developments in government finance has been the dramatic improvement in the near-term outlook for the federal budget deficit. In 1992, the deficit was almost 4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). But, by...

Economic growth, budgetary balance and 1997 fiscal policy. (effects of the baby boomers' retirement on economic growth)
October 1, 1997... Why should we balance the federal budget? Although a balanced budget is now firmly established in Washington as a political goal, presumably the ultimate purpose of a balanced budget is to raise national saving and investment, labor productivity,...

The impacts of a balanced budget on financial markets. (effect of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997)
October 1, 1997... After two decades of persistent worsening - in the 1970s and the 1980s - the budget deficit has narrowed markedly in the 1990s. Fundamentally, the improvement has come from a mixture of policy changes, i.e., the deficit-reduction plans enacted in...

Balancing the federal budget and U.S. international trade deficits. (effects of a balanced federal budget on the balance of payments)(includes means of attaining trade balance)
October 1, 1997... The administration and the Congress have agreed to enact legislation that would eliminate the federal budget deficit by year 2002. Underlying that agreement is the broadly shared view among economists and policymakers that eliminating the federal...

China's foreign trade and investment strategies: implications for the business environment. (foreign trade and investment guidelines of China from 1979 to 1997)(includes discussion on the trade balance and foreign investments in China)
October 1, 1997... China under the leadership of Mao Zedong was an autarkic economy, in which foreign trade was a residual of the economic plan. Except for Soviet assistance in the 1950s, foreign operations for the most part were nationalized or closed. In the...

The new business cycle: the impact of the application and production of information technology on U.S. macroeconomic stabilization.
October 1, 1997... The performance of the U.S. macroeconomy in 1997 has been nothing short of idyllic. Now in the seventh year of expansion, the U.S. economy continues to surprise analysts. This continuing stellar performance has inevitably raised a host of...

Sources of the current low-inflation environment in manufacturing.
October 1, 1997... The mechanism by which lower rates of inflation spread through the economy is not well understood. It is clear that the Federal Reserve can, within certain limits, slow the growth in the money supply relative to the economy's growth in productive...

U.S. technology policy, intraindustry joint ventures, and the National Cooperative Research and Production Act of 1993. (goals and achievements of the NCRPA)
October 1, 1997... The specter of U.S. antitrust policy is always lurking just beyond the corporate competitive radar screen. In the late 1970s, an emerging concern among many American business leaders, government officials, and corporate and academic economists...

Industry corner: industrial distribution, survival of the smartest. (application of information technology on the industrial distribution industry)
October 1, 1997... Industrial distribution, defined here as equivalent to durable-goods distribution, touches every sector of the U.S. economy, frequently multiple times. It is the industry that links the members of the supply chain (i. e., suppliers and...

The business economist at work: Motorola. (role of chief economist in Motorola)(includes career development lessons)
October 1, 1997... I have been a professional economist for over twenty years, progressing through a number of employers - government, academic and private sector. Each assignment has taught me something that proved important in the next. While I maintain that the...

The statistics corner: the NAICS is coming. Will we be ready? (North American Industrial Classification System)
October 1, 1997... The year 2000 will offer more challenges to the business economist than the simple conversion of software to deal with the turn of the century and a year divisible by four that is not a leap year. It also marks the start of the conversion of our...

The Producer Price Index: expanding services-sector coverage. (inclusion of the service-sector in the producer price index)
October 1, 1997... The Bureau of Labor Statistics' (BLS) efforts to expand the coverage of the Producer Price Index (PPI) to include the services sector of the U.S. economy began in earnest in 1990. The PPI program recently set a goal to substantially complete...

1997 Economic Census. (coverage and features)
October 1, 1997... The economic census is taken every five years and is the most comprehensive source of economic information on business establishments available. The economic census provides detailed industry and geographic statistics that are used by businesses,...

The PC corner: resources for economists on the Internet. (web sites of the guide on 'Resources for Economists on the Internet')
October 1, 1997... Back about 1 1/2 years ago, Mike Anderson wrote a guest column on the subject of economists and the Internet. He mentioned an on-line publication by Professor Bill Goffe of the University of Southern Mississippi entitled Resources for Economists...

Making Markets: Opportunism and Restraint on Wall Street.
October 1, 1997... If you have any interest, professionally or personally, in the financial markets, you will love this book. The securities markets often are viewed as examples of free markets where prices are formed by supply and demand, under rules set by...

Accounting for Tastes.
October 1, 1997... De gustibus non est disputandum? Is it true that about matters of taste, one ought not argue? Gary S. Becker, University Professor of Economics and Sociology at the University of Chicago and the 1992 recipient of the Nobel price in Economics,...

Back from the Brink.
October 1, 1997... Solve the puzzle of Alan Greenspan's Fedspeak and you are on your way to millions of dollars in trading profits in the financial markets. Steven Beckner, a financial reporter for Market News Service, Inc. who can send ripples through the markets...