Bureau of Economic Analysis website

Sep 21, 2021 | students

eed some help with the following activity, thanks!

  • Go to the Bureau of Economic Analysis website (Links to an external site.)
  •  (BEA)and click on the Tools Tab
  • Click on Interactive Data
  • Click on GDP and Personal Income under National Income on the right hand side
  • Click on Begin Using Data
  • Click on Section 1: Domestic Product and Income
  • Click on Table 1.1.1. Percent Change from Preceding Period in Real Gross Domestic Product
  • Use Table 1.1.1 to see the percentage change in Real GDP for most recent years.
  • Use Table 1.1.6 to see the change in inventories and net exports.

Using the data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), answer the following questions:

  1. Evaluate the current (2021 Q2) GDP and economic growth in the US.
  2. Your starting point should be Table 1.1.1. Economic Growth Table (Percent change from previous period)
  • How did the US economy grow (or contract) since last quarter? What contributed to this change? You need to go over all the components (C, I, G, X, M) and sub-components of GDP to evaluate the overall economy in the second quarter of 2021. You need to research and explain why certain items significantly subtracted from GDP and what items added to GDP.
  • Research the most current news articles for US GDP growth (The last revision of GDP was on August 26, 2021. The new release is on September 30, 2021). Cite your references. Compare your findings from one of the articles with the GDP data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. What other information you learned from the BEA tables would you add to the article?
  • What is the current state of the US economy? Are we in a recession? (A recession is defined as a decline in Real GDP for at least two consecutive quarters).
  1. Evaluate the changes in the GDP components during the great recession of 2008 and 2009. Explain how each component of GDP contributed to the economic slowdown during the recession and which component(s) had the biggest effect.
  • When you are in Table 1.1.1 on the BEA website
  • Click on MODIFY on the upper right-hand side of the page
  • Select 2006 for the first year (you can go all the way back to 1930 – remember that GDP was invented in the 1930s)
  • Click on refresh table
  • Explain the economic contraction (see all the negative values) during 2007-2009 using the GDP components (C, I, G, X, M) data from the tables.