How does the United States differ from the European Union in how it balances the competing claims of equality and efficiency?
What will be an ideal response?
The United States has chosen greater efficiency at the expense of greater equality. In the United States, wages have been allowed to fall and labor markets have been allowed to operate relatively free of government intervention. The result has been lower wages, fewer benefits for workers, and a larger gap between the rich and the poor. What has been gained is lower unemployment. The EU has emphasized greater equality rather than greater efficiency. Wages have not been allowed to fall due to minimum wage laws and the government has protected worker’s benefits through generous social welfare programs. The gap between the rich and the poor has not increased but it has been at the expense of higher unemployment.
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A decrease in a country's capital stock occurs when ________.
A. businesses sell machinery and equipment to one another B. the consumption of fixed capital exceeds gross domestic investment C. the prices of investment goods rise faster than the prices of consumer goods D. businesses have larger inventories at the end of the year than they had at the start
In the foreign exchange market, the demand for dollars decreases and the demand curve shifts leftward if the
A) U.S. interest rate differential increases. B) U.S. exchange rate falls. C) U.S. interest rate differential decreases. D) U.S. exchange rate rises. E) expected future exchange rate rises.
Ending the "Great Inflation" era in the 1970s is an example of
A) inflation targeting. B) exchange rate targeting. C) central bank independence. D) appointment of a more conservative central banker. E) all of the above.
If the earnings report of a firm indicates higher earnings than was expected by the investors:
a. the stock prices of the firm will decline. b. the price of the product produced by this firm will decline. c. the price of the product produced by this firm will rise. d. the firm will spend more on advertising. e. the stock prices of this firm will increase.