By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Define "foreign exchange market"
Describe different types of investments like foreign direct investments (FDI), portfolio investments, and hedging
Explain how appreciating or depreciating currency affects exchange rates
Identify who benefits from a stronger currency and benefits from a weaker currency

By the end of this section you will be able to:

Explain how exchange rate shifting influences aggregate demand and supply
Explain how shifting exchange rates also can influence loans and banks

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Explain and analyze various arguments that are in support of restricting imports, including the infant industry argument, the anti-dumping argument, the environmental protection argument, the unsafe consumer products argument, and the national interest argument
Explain dumping and race to the bottom
Evaluate the significance of countries’ perceptions on the benefits of growing trade

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Discuss how international trade influences the job market
Analyze the opportunity cost of protectionism
Explain how international trade impacts wages, labor standards, and working conditions

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Describe how the federal government can use discretionary fiscal policy to stabilize the economy
Identify examples of automatic stabilizers
Understand how a government can use standardized employment budget to identify automatic stabilizers

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Explain the U.S. federal budget in terms of annual debt and accumulated debt
Understand how economic growth or decline can influence a budget surplus or budget deficit

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Identify U.S. budget deficit and surplus trends over the past five decades
Explain the differences between the U.S. federal budget, and state and local budgets

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Understand how fiscal policy and monetary policy are interconnected
Explain the three lag times that often occur when solving economic problems
Identify the legal and political challenges of responding to an economic problem

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Differentiate among a regressive tax, a proportional tax, and a progressive tax
Identify major revenue sources for the U.S. federal budget

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Understand the arguments for and against requiring the U.S. federal budget to be balanced
Consider the long-run and short-run effects of a federal budget deficit

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Explain how expansionary fiscal policy can shift aggregate demand and influence the economy
Explain how contractionary fiscal policy can shift aggregate demand and influence the economy

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Identify patterns of inflation for the United States using data from the Consumer Price Index
Identify patterns of inflation on an international level

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Use the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to calculate U.S. inflation rates
Identify several ways the Bureau of Labor Statistics avoids biases in the Consumer Price Index (CPI)
Differentiate among the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the Producer Price Index (PPI), the International Price Index, the Employment Cost Index, and the GDP deflator.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Explain the relationship between indexing and inflation
Identify three ways the government can control inflation through macroeconomic policy