tailieunhanh - Ebook Marcoeconomics (gobal edition): Part 2

(BQ) Part 2 book "Marcoeconomics" has contents: Economic growth, employment and unemployment, credit markets, the monetary system, countercyclical macroeconomic policy, macroeconomics and international trade, open economy macroeconomics, short run fluctuations,.and other contents. | 7 Find more at Economic Growth Why are you so much more prosperous than your great-greatgrandparents were? The United States was not always as prosperous as it is today. Its (real) GDP per capita today is about 25 times what it was in 1820. At that time, only a small fraction of the population lived in cities; most people worked in agriculture. People could not even imagine, let alone have access to, many of the goods, services, and technologies that we take for granted, including radio, television, indoor plumbing, shopping malls, cars, planes, or even trains. The United States and several other countries have vastly increased their GDP (income) per capita over the last 200 years, developing new goods, services, and technologies. We call this process economic growth. The key questions we address in this chapter are how and why the United States and several other countries have managed to achieve such notable economic growth over the past two centuries. CHAPTER OUTLINE The Power of Economic Growth How Does a Nation’s Economy Grow? EBE Why are you so much more prosperous than your great-greatgrandparents were? The History of Growth and Technology Growth, Inequality, and Poverty 170 170 17/03/15 2:03 PM Find more at KEY IDEAS Economic growth measures how much (real) GDP per capita grows over time. Today’s high levels of GDP per capita in many nations are a result of rapid economic growth over the last two centuries. Sustained economic growth relies on technological progress. There are sizable differences in the historical growth rates of different economies, which are largely responsible for their differences in the levels of GDP per capita. Economic growth is a powerful tool for poverty reduction. The Power of Economic Growth We saw in Chapter 6 how aggregate incomes (GDP) are determined. We can now start using these ideas to understand why several countries, .