WORKING WITH MACROECONOMIC DATA
For data to use in these exercises, go to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis FRED database at fred.stlouisfed.org.
1. Calculate and graph the growth rate of total factor productivity since 1960 using FRED series MFPNFBS.
(Note that this series is not the same as used in Table 3.1, but is similar.). How would you characterize the movements in productivity since 1960? How do recessions affect the growth rate of productivity? How was productivity affected by the oil shocks of 1973-1975, 1979-1980, 1990, and 2003-2008?2. Using monthly seasonally adjusted data from 1960 to the present, calculate and graph the total workingage population (called the civilian noninstitutional population), the number of employed workers, the number of unemployed workers, and the number of workers in the labor force.
At the website of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov/cps/cpsatabs.htm, find seasonally adjusted data since 1960 and graph the labor force participation rate for the overall working-age population aged 20 and older, and graph the labor force participation rates for males aged 20 and older and for females aged 20 and older. What are the major changes in these variables that have occurred since 1960?
3. Plot a graph of quarterly data for real GDP and fullemployment GDP from 1970 to the present. (In the FRED database, full-employment GDP is called Real Potential GDP.) Which variable is “smoother"? How would you characterize the volatility of real GDP before 1980 compared with after 1980? From 1950 to 2020, how would you characterize the overall movements in the growth rate of real full-employment GDP?
4. Figure 3.11 shows the relative price of energy. In this exercise, we derive the series plotted in that figure and examine recent data. First, find data on the producer price index for fuels and related products and power, and plot the growth rate in the index from one year earlier. What is the growth rate of energy prices over the most recent 12 months?
Note, however, that this series represents the inflation rate in energy prices but does not tell you how that inflation rate compares with other producer prices, so you do not know if there is an increase in energy prices relative to overall prices. To remedy that, next go back to the energy price index level (rather than the growth rate). Then find data on overall producer prices and divide the energy price series by the overall producer price series. Now find (and plot) the growth rate of this relative energy price series from one year earlier. What is the growth rate of relative energy prices over the most recent 12 months?
What do the differences in the two series you have plotted tell you about the relative price of energy? What does the difference in the two values over the most recent 12 months tell you about recent movements of energy prices compared with other producer prices?