Influence of Economics on Household Decision Making, economics homework help

Purpose of Assignment

To locate, retrieve, and evaluate the effects of macroeconomic indicators on your own decision making.

Assignment Steps

Resources: Tutorial help on Excel^® and Word functions can be found on the Microsoft^® Office website. There are also additional tutorials via the web offering support for Office products.

Scenario: Consider your
last big purchase such as a car, appliances, home repairs, home
purchase, computer equipment, college tuition, or another “big-ticket”
item, which are often purchased using loans/financing (by borrowing
money). Also consider your decision-making process that led you to
choose a particular make, model, or brand of the product (or service)
you purchased and whether it was the right time to make the purchase
given economic conditions at the time of your purchase. While analyzing
your decision, keep in mind everything from interest rates to the prices
of complementary and substitute goods are driven by human economic
behavior.

Develop a minimum 1,050-word analysis of your decision-making process in which you include the following:

• Retrieve statistics on Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and on Real
  Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) by year for the last ten years.
  You can retrieve those statistics from internet sources including, but
  not limited to, the Federal Reserve of St. Louis’s FRED web site, the
  U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) web
  site, or another credible source of your choice. Post these statistics
  in a single worksheet of an Excel^® workbook and submit your Excel^®
  file with your report. In your report, discuss the latest 10-year
  trends in both GDP and PCE. Also discuss how the trends in GDP compare
  with trends in PCE. You are encouraged to include graphs of these
  statistics in your report; you could create the graphs in Excel^® and copy them into your report.
• Retrieve statistics on the Effective Federal Funds Rate and on the
  Consumer Price Index: All Items Less Food and Energy by year for the
  last 30 years. You can retrieve those statistics from internet sources
  including, but not limited to, the Federal Reserve of St. Louis’s FRED
  web site, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics
  (BLS) web site, or other credible sources of your choice. Post these
  statistics in a single worksheet of an Excel^® workbook and submit your Excel^®
  file with your report. In your report, discuss how the trends in the
  Effective Federal Funds Rate compare with trends in inflation. If you
  took out a loan to pay for your “big-ticket” purchase, what was the
  interest rate on your loan? Were interest rates rising or falling at
  that time? Were interest rates relatively high or low at that time? You
  are also encouraged to include graphs of these statistics in your
  report.
• Discuss the influence of any Federal government or state government
  programs, such as tax credits or tax deductions for
  energy-saving/efficiency purchases, on your decision to make your last
  big purchase; or if government incentives did not factor into your
  decision, explain why not.
• Develop conclusions about the economy’s influence on personal and
  business decision-making relative to purchases of big-ticket items,
  investments, or other major purchases.

Cite a minimum of three peer-reviewed sources. Note:
The Federal Reserve of St. Louis, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and
the Bureau of Labor Statistics can be cited to fulfill this
requirement.

Format your paper consistent with APA guidelines.

Click the Assignment Files tab to submit your assignment. Be sure you submit your paper as well as the two required Excel^® files.