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How to Write an Economics Assignment

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Economics is a vast subject and needs to be deeply understood when writing about any topic concerning it. You may be nervous when writing your assignment. You need not worry anymore as we are here with everything you need to write a great economics assignment. This article is going to educate you about how to write an economics assignment.

Things To Keep In Mind While Writing Your Economics Assignment

Follow the below-mentioned tips to write an amazing economics assignment.

Collect all the data accessible to you on the topic that you have been assigned or that you have picked for yourself. You can do this by going through the books available at a library, the web, and other sources that have databases related to your research. You should not indulge in a lot of sources as that would confuse you. Stick to the resources that you find are relevant and explain your topic in a good way. In-depth research will assist you in composing assignments that are factually and technically accurate. All you have to do is have a clear idea about your topic so that you can explain to the person reading your assignment what it is about. This can only be done if you do the research in the correct manner.

Read everything and then make an analysis of your own. Include everything that you think is important.

But in order to be 100% sure that your research is correct, we recommend you to buy assignment online on EasyEssay.us , it’s a legit writing service that is based in the USA.

Assignment Structure

You can use the format that has been provided by your teacher. If not then you should follow the standard format of the assignment. If you do not follow a proper structure you may end up losing marks which are not at all good for your academic records. In case you are not aware of the format here is the right one to write your economics assignment-

• Title – The first page should contain the topic of your assignment.
• Index – Include all the sub-topics that are included in your assignment. (This may not be necessary when it comes to small assignments.)
• Body – Now write all the things that should be covered under the topic. Write only relevant stuff and do not stray from the topic. Include all the facts, reviews, and literature that support your topic. The methods and the findings are also to be written here.
• Conclusion – Concluding the topic is very important as it sums up your assignment and also shows your understanding of the assignment. You should end it with your thoughts on the subject and give suggestions.
• Referencing – This is quite an important part of the assignment. If you want the plagiarism content to be low you can give credit to all the sources that you have cited in the assignment. Follow the format that has been asked to. You can learn various referencing styles from the internet.

No Unnecessary Information And Jargon

The language used in the assignment should be easy to understand, composed of simple English, and clear. Try avoiding the use of jargon wherever unnecessary and also stay clear of highly technical language. Include them only when it is needed. When you overuse a high level of terminology it becomes difficult for the person reading your work to clearly understand what you are trying to convey to them.

Avoid making unnecessary repetitions of the information and complete your assignment within the word limit assigned to you. If you keep on repeating the information the reader will understand you only wanted to reach the word limit and have not taken the assignment seriously. Also do not include information that has nothing to do with the topic that you are writing about. Stick to only the relevant points.

Edit And Proofread

Before you submit your assignment make sure you read it once thoroughly so that you can remove the mistakes and edit it wherever it is required. This way if there is any problem in the assignment it will be solved giving you better chances of scoring well in the assignment.

If you want to score good marks in your economics assignment then you should keep all of the above-mentioned tips in your mind. If you follow them all and work hard in making your assignment then you will surely get a good grade.

Economic conditions outlook during turbulent times, December 2022

View the surveys, economic conditions outlook, september 2022, economic conditions outlook, june 2022, economic conditions outlook, march 2022.

For the third consecutive quarter, executives responding to the latest McKinsey Global Survey on economic conditions remain more wary about the future of the global economy and their countries’ economies than they were at the start of 2022. 1 The online survey was in the field from November 28 to December 2, 2022, and garnered responses from 1,192 participants representing the full range of regions, industries, company sizes, functional specialties, and tenures. To adjust for differences in response rates, the data are weighted by the contribution of each respondent’s nation to global GDP. However, respondents are less likely now than in the previous two surveys to report worsening global conditions—or to expect them in the months ahead. They continue to point to geopolitical conflicts and inflation as the most pressing economic risks over the next year, while concerns about rising interest rates grow domestically.

In the latest survey, we also asked about much longer-term risks: potential global forces that might affect organizations over the next 20 years. Respondents say technical innovation and energy and natural resource considerations are the two most likely to affect their organizations, and most say their organizations are taking steps to prepare for each of those factors.

Pessimism over global conditions lessens, but concerns linger

At the outset of 2022, executives were more likely to be positive than negative about current conditions and prospects for the global economy and their countries’ economies. Views became more somber in the June survey. Since June, respondents have become less negative about the global economy. They are much more likely now than in June to report improvement or stable conditions and to expect conditions to improve or stay the same over the next six months (Exhibit 1), though they remain more likely to expect declining than improving conditions.

On the other hand, respondents’ views on their countries’ economies overall remain largely unchanged from the June and September surveys (Exhibit 2). Respondents continue to be about as likely to expect improvement in their economies as they are to expect declining conditions over the coming months. We see just a few notable changes by region. Respondents in North America have grown more likely since June to expect domestic conditions to improve, while the reverse is true among Asia–Pacific respondents.

Continuing concerns about geopolitical conflicts and inflation

Looking at risks to global economic growth over the next 12 months, geopolitical conflicts remain the top-cited risk for the fourth survey, while inflation continues to be the second-most-cited global threat and the top concern domestically (Exhibit 3).

As 2022 comes to an end, the latest survey shows rising interest rates as a growing concern domestically, surpassing concerns over energy price volatility, the second-most commonly cited risk in June and September. Most respondents (63 percent) expect interest rates in their countries to increase over the next six months.

Survey results: Expectations for company performance, by industry

The latest survey shows regional shifts in what respondents see as the main risks to their countries’ growth. Among respondents in Europe, the risk from volatile energy prices reported in September has dropped from the top concern to the third-most-cited risk among respondents in the latest survey, behind inflation and geopolitical instability (Exhibit 4). In Asia–Pacific, as more interest rate hikes hit the market, respondents are now almost twice as likely as in September to cite rising interest rates as a risk. Greater China remains an outlier as the only region in which respondents most often cite the COVID-19 pandemic as a top risk, followed by inflation. 2 Greater China includes Hong Kong and Taiwan. The survey was in the field the week before the Chinese government announced a rollback of COVID-19 policies that used lockdowns to limit the spread of the virus.

Preparations to tackle global forces in the coming decades

When thinking about the externalities that might have the greatest effects on organizations over the next 20 years, respondents most often point to technical innovation, followed by energy and natural resource considerations—and, of the potential forces that could affect organizations, those are the two that respondents most often say their organizations are taking significant steps to prepare for (Exhibit 5). The survey also shows some regional differences in organizations’ preparations. Respondents in Greater China, for example, are much more likely than others to say their organizations are taking significant steps to prepare for changes in the world order, such as multipolarity or regionalization, as well as energy and natural resource considerations such as net-zero initiatives. Respondents in Greater China and in other countries in Asia–Pacific are more likely than others to say their organizations are taking significant steps to prepare for financial changes as a result of debt, currency fluctuation, and new growth.

Download Economic conditions outlook during turbulent times, December 2022 (PDF–490  KB).

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

The survey content and analysis were developed by Jeffrey Condon , a senior knowledge expert in McKinsey’s Atlanta office; Krzysztof Kwiatkowski and Vivien Singer , both capabilities and insights experts at the Waltham Client Capabilities Hub; and Sven Smit , the chair and director of the McKinsey Global Institute and a senior partner in the Amsterdam office.

This article was edited by Heather Hanselman, an editor in the Atlanta office.

In stormy weather, survey respondents maintain realism about the global economy. While geopolitical conflicts and inflation remain top of mind, concerns about energy volatility predominate in Europe.

In September, respondents in most regions cite inflation as the main risk to growth in their home economies for the second quarter, according to the latest McKinsey Global Survey on economic conditions. 3 The online survey was in the field from August 29 to September 2, 2022, and garnered responses from 1,247 participants representing the full range of regions, industries, company sizes, functional specialties, and tenures. To adjust for differences in response rates, the data are weighted by the contribution of each respondent’s nation to global GDP. Geopolitical instability and conflicts remain a top concern as well, most often cited as the greatest risk to global growth over the next 12 months. Responses assessing the global economy are primarily downbeat, as they were in the last survey. Regional divergence in outlooks has emerged, as respondents in Europe express deeper concerns over energy price volatility and more somber views about their domestic economies. Respondents in North America, on the other hand, were less negative about their countries’ current economies than in the previous survey.

Regional differences also appear when private-sector respondents report on the cost increases that are most affecting their companies. Respondents in Europe most often cite the impact of rising energy prices, while those in India and North America tend to point toward wage increases. Overall, nine out of ten respondents say their companies have seen cost increases in the past six months, and a majority have raised the prices of their products or services. Most also foresee their organizations’ operating expenses increasing in the coming months.

Views on global conditions remain downbeat

After a particularly negative assessment of economic conditions in the June survey, responses to the latest survey are almost as gloomy (Exhibit 1). Looking toward the future, pessimism remains consistent with the previous findings, with about half of respondents expecting global conditions to weaken in the next six months.

Image description:

Two vertical, stacked bar charts display results from surveys conducted in March, June, and September 2022, in which respondents were asked whether they viewed global economic conditions as improving, the same, or worsening. One chart shows how respondents feel about current conditions versus six months ago. The other chart shows how respondents feel about the next six months versus current conditions. The data indicate overall pessimism, showing that respondents are slightly less negative than in June when comparing current conditions to six months ago, and that they are not any more optimistic about the next six months.

End of image description.

Respondents’ takes on the global economy vary significantly by region, however. Those in Europe and North America offer a grim view of both current and future global conditions, whereas those in Greater China 4 Includes respondents in Hong Kong and Taiwan. are primarily positive about the present and the future. Overall, for the third quarter this year, geopolitical instability and conflicts remain the most-cited risk to global economic growth, and inflation remains the second-most-cited threat. In a change from June, volatile energy prices have superseded supply chain disruptions as the third-most-cited global risk.

Inflation remains top of mind—except in Europe and Greater China

Respondents’ concerns about supply chain disruptions as domestic economic risks have also diminished since the previous survey. Supply chain challenges are now the fifth-most-cited risk to respondents’ home economies, surpassed by concerns about rising interest rates. Inflation remains the most-cited risk to domestic economies for the second quarter, followed by volatile energy prices and geopolitical instability and conflicts. In all locations but Europe and Greater China, inflation is the most-cited threat to respondents’ economies over the next 12 months (Exhibit 2). In Europe, volatile energy prices and inflation are the growth risks cited most often, with geopolitical instability or conflicts a more distant third. In Greater China, the COVID-19 pandemic remains the most reported risk, cited by nearly half of respondents for the second quarter in a row.

A series of horizontal bar charts show the most-cited potential risks to economic growth in respondents’ countries over the next 12 months, broken down by region. The risks from most cited to least cited include inflation, volatile energy prices, geopolitical instability and/or conflicts, rising interest rates, supply chain disruptions, labor shortages, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Regions shown include Asia-Pacific, Europe, North America, other developing markets, and Greater China. The data show that inflation remains the most-cited risk to respondents’ economies, except in Europe--where respondents are most concerned about volatile energy prices--and in Greater China, where COVID-19 remains the most-cited risk.

As unease heightens in Europe, optimism builds in North America

Similar to the June survey, four in ten respondents say economic conditions in their countries have improved over the past six months. However, the findings show new regional divergence (Exhibit 3). Responses in Europe are more downbeat than earlier this year, with more than three-quarters of respondents now reporting that their economies have worsened. At the same time, in North America—where sentiment was closely aligned with Europe’s in the previous two quarters—respondents have become more positive since the previous survey. In Greater China, India, and Asia–Pacific, a majority say their economies have improved. But in Asia–Pacific, optimism has faltered. Respondents there are much less likely than in the previous survey to say that their countries’ economies have improved.

A vertical, grouped bar chart shows a regional breakdown of survey results from June and September 2022, filtered by respondents who say that economic conditions in their countries are better than six months ago. Countries shown include: Greater China, India, Asia-Pacific, North America, other developing markets, and Europe. The data show that respondents in Europe and Asia-Pacific are less likely to report improving economies than they were in June, while the reverse is true in North America.

Expectations about the next six months also vary by region. Respondents in Europe and Asia–Pacific are less likely than in June to expect their countries’ economies to improve, while respondents in other developing markets have become more hopeful. Overall, respondents are about as likely to expect their countries’ economies to improve as to worsen in the next six months, as was also true in the previous survey.

Concerns mount over companies’ prospects

The latest survey asked private-sector respondents about the challenges their companies are facing and their expectations for the coming months. Nine in ten respondents say their companies have experienced cost increases in the past six months. The largest share of responses point to rising energy prices—which include electricity as well as fuel—as having the biggest impact, followed by increases in the costs of materials.

The concerns over various types of cost increases vary by region (Exhibit 4). In Europe, respondents primarily point to rising energy costs, whereas wage increases are of top concern in India and North America. Consistent across all regions, respondents say their companies have raised the prices of their products or services in the past six months. Looking ahead, 71 percent of respondents expect their companies’ operating expenses to be greater next year than they were last year.

A series of horizontal bar charts show the areas in which survey respondents say their organizations have been most affected by cost increases in the past six months, by region. The areas from most cited to least cited include energy, materials, wages, transportation, equipment, and supplies. Regions shown include Europe, Asia-Pacific, Greater China, other developing markets, India, and North America. The data show that companies have experienced a range of cost increases, and that the ones with the biggest impact vary by region.

What’s more, expectations for companies’ profits and customer demand are the most downbeat that they have been since July 2020. Just 51 percent expect profits to increase, down from 65 percent six months ago. The same share—51 percent—expect demand for their companies’ goods or services to increase.

A note on the state of globalization

While concerns over the effects of supply chain disruptions on global and domestic growth have eased since the previous survey, those disruptions remain top of mind as a risk to company growth for the second quarter (for more on how respondents expect their supply chains to change, see sidebar, “A note on the state of globalization”). Furthermore, a majority of respondents working in manufacturing—including those in automotive and assembly, aerospace and defense, advanced electronics, and semiconductors—or retail report that their companies’ inventory levels are not ideal. One-third say they have too much inventory, while 21 percent say levels are too low. Looking specifically within the consumer goods and retail sector, respondents are just as likely to report too little inventory as too much, while a plurality say their inventory levels are about right. Of the respondents in all manufacturing and retail industries reporting nonoptimal levels, nearly three-quarters expect their organization to achieve optimal levels within the next 12 months.

Download Economic conditions outlook, September 2022 (PDF–407  KB).

A new survey finds that inflation now tops the list of perceived economic hazards in respondents’ home countries and geopolitical conflicts remain a top threat to the global economy.

Just one quarter after geopolitical conflicts and instability overtook the COVID-19 pandemic as the leading risk to economic growth, survey respondents’ concerns over inflation now exceed their worries about the effects of geopolitical issues on their countries’ economies. In the latest McKinsey Global Survey  on economic conditions, respondents also see inflation as a growing threat to the global economy and continue to view geopolitical instability and supply chain disruptions among the top threats to both global and domestic growth. 5 The online survey was in the field from June 6 to June 10, 2022, and garnered responses from 899 participants representing the full range of regions, industries, company sizes, functional specialties, and tenures. To adjust for differences in response rates, the data are weighted by the contribution of each respondent’s nation to global GDP.

Amid this disruption-crowded environment, respondents report uneasy views on economic conditions, both globally and in their respective countries. For the fourth quarter in a row, respondents to our latest survey—conducted the first full week in June—are less likely than those in the previous survey to say economic conditions have improved. Overall, pessimism about the second half of 2022 is on par with the early months of the pandemic in 2020. Exceptionally, however, the mood is much more positive among respondents in Asia–Pacific and Greater China, who report improvements and continue to be upbeat about their economic prospects.

Inflation, geopolitical, and supply chain concerns all loom large

Respondents’ views of the top threats to their home economies have shifted since March 2022, 6 The March 2022 survey was the first survey since December 2019 in which the COVID-19 pandemic was not one of the top five most-cited risks to domestic growth. From March 2020 through December 2021, the pandemic was the most-cited risk all but once. In the latest survey, it is the seventh-most-cited risk. and they now most often cite inflation as a risk over the next year (Exhibit 1). While geopolitical conflicts were top of mind in the previous quarter’s survey, which ran four days after Russia had invaded Ukraine, respondents are now nearly half as likely to cite geopolitical issues as a risk to their countries’ economies. Geopolitical conflicts and instability remain an outsize concern in Europe, where 50 percent list it among their top risks. But even in Europe, inflation is the risk cited most often—as it is in every geography except Greater China. 7 “Greater China” includes respondents in Hong Kong and Taiwan. There, respondents most often point to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Respondents predict extended disruption related to the Ukraine invasion

We asked survey respondents about their expectations for how the war in Ukraine might affect lives and livelihoods outside the conflict zone . When asked about the war’s effects on the global economy, a plurality of respondents—37 percent—select a scenario called 2B, in which hostilities either end or are easing within the next six months and the global response is moderate, with a continued exit from stimulus policies related to the COVID-19 pandemic, reduced decarbonization goals, and a restart of fossil-fuel investments (exhibit).

Geopolitical instability remains the top-cited threat to the global economy (see sidebar, “Respondents predict extended disruption related to the Ukraine invasion”), as it was in the March survey, and inflation has overtaken volatile energy prices to become the second-most-cited concern. Supply chain disruptions round out the top three global risks, followed by volatile energy prices and rising interest rates. For the second survey in a row, more than three-quarters of respondents expect interest rates in their countries to increase in the next six months. 8 In comparison, in the September 2021 survey, 51 percent of respondents said they expected interest rates in their countries to increase, and 64 percent said the same in the December 2021 survey.

Respondents also see supply chain disruptions as major obstacles for their companies’ growth. In the latest survey, that answer choice has overtaken geopolitical instability as the most-cited risk to companies’ growth. These supply chain concerns—and those about the changing trade environment and relationships—are much more common among respondents who say at least some of their companies’ essential materials 9 We define “essential materials” as any components that are necessary to produce new products or services. are produced in China than among those who don’t source materials from China.

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Respondents are largely pessimistic about the global economy but more positive about their countries’ prospects.

Nearly two-thirds of respondents say the global economy is worse now than it was six months ago—the highest share to say so since the June 2020 survey . That appraisal is much more negative than what respondents predicted six months ago: in our December 2021 survey, nearly six in ten respondents expected to see economic improvements over that time period. At the same time, respondents’ takes on both current and future conditions in the global economy have grown progressively gloomier since June 2021, with half of all respondents expecting conditions to worsen in the second half of 2022 (Exhibit 2).

The findings about respondents’ respective countries also have grown more somber over the past year (Exhibit 3). For the first time since the September 2020 survey, respondents are more likely to say economic conditions in their countries have worsened than improved over the past six months. Views vary widely by region, however. In both Asia–Pacific and Greater China, about two-thirds of respondents say their countries’ economies have improved. The responses from Europe and North America are much more downcast: just one in five respondents in each region report recent improvements in their economies.

That said, respondents’ expectations for their home countries over the next six months are somewhat more hopeful than their outlook on the global economy: 39 percent expect their economies to improve in the near future. However, this is the first survey since the one in September 2020 in which less than half of respondents expect improvements in their home economies. Now, they are just as likely to expect economic conditions will improve as decline.

McKinsey Global Surveys

Most respondents in Asia–Pacific and Greater China expect their economies to improve in the second half of 2022, although overall optimism has declined since the previous survey (Exhibit 4). Over the same time period, respondents in Europe and North America have become much more pessimistic about the future.

Download Economic conditions outlook, June 2022 (PDF– KB).

The survey content and analysis were developed by Krzysztof Kwiatkowski and Vivien Singer, capabilities and insights experts in McKinsey’s Waltham, Massachusetts, office, and Sven Smit , the chair and a director of the McKinsey Global Institute and a senior partner in the Amsterdam office.

Worries about geopolitical conflicts, among other risks to growth, now exceed executives’ concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall economic optimism continues to decline.

Geopolitical instability is now cited as the top risk to both global and domestic economies in our latest McKinsey Global Survey  on economic conditions. 10 The online survey was in the field from February 28 to March 4, 2022, and garnered responses from 785 participants representing the full range of regions, industries, company sizes, functional specialties, and tenures. To adjust for differences in response rates, the data are weighted by the contribution of each respondent’s nation to global GDP. That’s the consensus among executives worldwide, who have cited the COVID-19 pandemic as a leading risk to growth for the past two years.

Our quarterly survey was launched four days after the invasion of Ukraine, and executives express uncertainty and concern about its impact on the economy. About three-quarters of respondents cite geopolitical conflicts as a top risk to global growth in the near term, up from one-third who said so in the previous quarter . Meanwhile, the share of respondents citing the pandemic as a top risk fell from 57 to 12 percent, as much larger percentages now identify energy prices and inflation as threats to the global economy.

At the same time, overall sentiment about the economy remains largely positive, but it continues to trend downward. For the third quarter in a row, respondents are less likely than in the previous one to report that economic conditions in their respective countries and across the globe are improving. They are also less likely to believe that either global or domestic conditions will improve in the months ahead. The near-term economic outlook is especially gloomy among respondents in developed economies, whose views are increasingly downbeat compared with their emerging-economy peers.

Geopolitical conflict overshadows all other risks to growth

According to the survey results, executives expect that the economic effects of the invasion of Ukraine will be strongly felt. Seventy-six percent of all respondents cite geopolitical instability and/or conflicts as a risk to global economic growth over the next 12 months, and 57 percent cite it as a threat to growth in their home economies (Exhibit 1).

Executives see geopolitical instability as the top risk to both global and domestic growth in every geography except Greater China, 11 Includes Hong Kong and Taiwan. where respondents most often cite the COVID-19 pandemic. Thirty-nine percent of respondents there say the pandemic is a threat to domestic growth, compared with 5 percent of all other respondents.

Nearly two years after COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic, 12 “Timeline: WHO’s COVID-19 response,” World Health Organization, updated January 25, 2021. this is the first time our respondents have not cited the pandemic as the top risk to growth in the global economy (Exhibit 2).

Overall sentiment continues to wane

While respondents tend to report improving—rather than worsening—conditions in the global economy and in their home countries, the percentages of executives saying so continue to decrease over time (Exhibit 3).

Their outlook for the next six months is even more downbeat, especially for the global economy (Exhibit 4). Forty-three percent of respondents believe the global economy will improve over the next six months, a share that’s nearly equal to the 40 percent who think conditions will worsen. This month’s result also marks the first time since July 2020 that less than a majority of respondents feel optimistic about the global economy’s prospects.

And while executives overwhelmingly cite geopolitical conflicts as a risk to economic growth, rising interest rates are a growing concern as well. Interest rates are among the top five risks to near-term growth in the global economy (for the second survey in a row) and in respondents’ home countries—and the share of respondents expecting a significant increase in near-term interest rates has more than doubled since the previous quarter. Across regions, executives in North America and in Europe are the most likely to expect interest rates to rise rather than hold steady or decrease.

The divide between developed and emerging economies grows

For the third quarter in a row, the survey results suggest a widening gap in optimism between developed-economy and emerging-economy respondents. In developed economies—where respondents cite geopolitical conflicts as a risk to growth more often than their peers do—sentiment is declining at a faster rate than in emerging economies. Only 52 percent of developed-economy respondents, versus 73 percent of their emerging-economy peers, say economic conditions at home have improved in recent months. In our two previous surveys, the gap was much smaller (Exhibit 5).

This trend is also evident in respondents’ views on the global economy. This month, just 39 percent of developed-economy respondents say global economic conditions have improved in recent months, compared with 68 percent in emerging economies. Respondents in developed economies also report a more downbeat outlook for the coming months: only 36 percent believe conditions in the global economy will improve in the near term, versus 55 percent of their emerging-economy peers.

Download Economic conditions outlook, March 2022  (PDF–422 KB).

The survey content and analysis were developed by Alan FitzGerald , a director of client capabilities in McKinsey’s New York office; Vivien Singer , a capabilities and insights expert at the Waltham Client Capabilities Hub; and Sven Smit , the chair and director of the McKinsey Global Institute and a senior partner in the Amsterdam office.

This article was edited by Daniella Seiler, an executive editor in the New York office.

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Economic conditions outlook, 2021

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NIOS Economics 318 Free Solved Assignment [TMA] 2022 – 23 (English Medium)

Nios free solved assignment  [tma] 2022 – 2023, economics 318 free solved assignment [tma] 2022 – 23, tutor marked assignment, max. marks: 20.

In this article, you will get Economics 318 Free Solved Assignment [TMA] 2022-23 .  You will solved assignment of other subjects in our page nios solved assignment 202-23 .

(i) All questions are compulsory. The marks allotted for each question are given beside the questions.

(ii) Write your name, enrollment numbers, AI name, and subject on the top of the first page of the answer sheet.

1. Answer any one of the following questions in about 40-60 words.       2

a) “Indian economy is known as developing economy on the map of world economy”. Suggest some effective measures to make our economy as a developed economy.      (See Lesson-1)

Ans: Indian economy is known as developing economy on the map of world economy. But to make our country we have to take several steps:

1. Reducing poverty and increasing GDP by modernizing our agricultural system.

2. Encourage Foreign investment in various sectors of the economy especially banking and financial sector.

3. Encourage innovation and entrepreneurship through various EDP programmes. It can create many jobs in our country and reduces the problem of unemployment.

4. Reducing social and economical inequalities.

b) After independence the strategy of industrialization was implemented in order to address the problem related to poverty, unemployment, economic growth, self –reliance, etc. In the light of the statement list four strategies to solve these problems during planning period.       (See Lesson-2)

Ans: Answer any one

2. Answer any one of the following questions in about 40-60 words.           2

a) Primary data is the one, which is collected by the investigator himself for a specific inquiry or study. As you know there are many ways to collect primary data. Based the above statement, list out methods of collecting data and explain any of them.     (See Lesson-6)

Ans: Methods of Collecting Primary Data: Following are the important methods of collecting primary data:

(a) Observation Method.

(i) Structured and Unstructured Observation.

(ii) Participant and Non-Participant Observations.

(iii) Controlled and Uncontrolled Observations.

(b) Interview Method.

(i) Personal Interview.

(ii) Telephone Interview.

(c) Questionnaire Method.

(d) Schedule Method.

Questionnaire Method: In this method a list of questions pertaining to the survey is prepared and sent to the various informants by post. The questionnaire contains questions and provides space for answers.   A request is made to the informants through a covering letter to fill up the questionnaire and send it back within a specified time.   This method is adapted by private individuals, research workers, private and public organisations and even by govt.

b) The following are the marks (out of 100) of 60 students in mathematics: (See Lesson-6)

55, 26, 95, 31, 07, 78, 92, 62, 52, 56, 15, 63, 25, 36, 54, 44, 47, 27, 72, 16,

13, 5, 80, 86, 07, 51, 48, 24, 56, 70, 19, 61, 17, 16, 36, 34, 42, 34, 35, 72,

55, 75, 31, 52, 28, 72, 97, 74, 45, 62, 68, 86, 35, 85, 36, 81, 75, 04, 24, 30.

Construct a grouped frequency distribution table with a width 10 of each class.

3. Answer any one of the following questions in about 40-60 words.                 2

a) Make a brief description of some effective programmers, and policies introduced by the government to reduce the extent of poverty, and unemployment from our country at the beginning of 21st century.     (See Lesson-4)

Ans: Poverty refers to a state in which an individual is unable to fulfill even the basic necessities of life.

Unemployment: It means when a person is ready and willing to work at the prevailing rate of wage but does not get work.

Some of the policies introduced by the government to reduce the extent of poverty, and unemployment from our country at the beginning of 21st century:

1. Prime minister’s Rozgar Yojana (PMRY).

2. Swarna Jayanthi Shahri Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY).

3. Swarna Jayanthi Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY).

4. Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana (SGRY).

5. National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005.

6. Pradhan Mantri Gramodaya Yojana (PMGY).

7. Atal Pension Yojana.

8. Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana.

9. Ayushman Bharat Yojana.

10. Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY).

b) “Excessive use of resources has given birth to the concept of sustainable development”. Justify the statement with a suitable illustration.      (See Lesson-3)

4. Answer any one of the following questions in about 100-150 words. Word limit is not applicable for numerical questions.

(a) Construct a frequency polygon and histogram from the data given below; (See Lesson-6)

b) Suppose you are a student of class XII of a co-educational senior secondary school. You will get the board exam from the Faculty of Science, Arts, and Commerce, for the display board of the school. The duty is assigned to prepare a tabular presentation of the passing students. List the factors that you will keep in mind while preparing a tabular presentation, and also prepare a sample table.      (See Lesson-7)

Ans: I am a student of class 12. This year I am going to appear in final exam. All the streams are studied in our school. I have been assigned a duty to present the percentage of passing students in tabular form. But while preparing table, there are many factors which is required to be kept in mind.

Key points to be taken into consideration while preparing table:

Tabulation refers to the systematic arrangement of the information in rows and columns. Rows are the horizontal arrangement. In simple words, tabulation is a layout of figures in rectangular form with appropriate headings to explain different rows and columns. The main purpose of the table is to simplify the presentation and to facilitate comparisons.

The following points to be taken into consideration while preparing table:

(i) To make complex data simple: When data are arranged systematically in a table, such data become more meaningful and can be easily understood.

(ii) To facilitate comparison: When different data sets are presented in tables it becomes possible to compare them.

(iii) To economize space: A statistical table furnishes maximum information relating to the study in minimum space.

(iv) To make data fit for analysis and interpretation.

(v) To provide reference: A statistical table can be used as a source of reference for other studies of similar nature.

Sample table is given below

5. Answer any one of the following question in about 100 to 150 words. Word limit is not applicable for numerical question.

a) “All macroeconomic studies can help in better understanding, and analysis of micro economic variables. The study of the two branches differs in one way or the other, which also provides an important basis for understanding the concept of economics”. Explain the following concepts on the basis of the statement:

(i) Interdependence of micro, and macroeconomics with suitable illustration.

(ii) Differences between micro, and macroeconomics.

(iii) Significance of micro, and macroeconomics.      (See Lesson-12)

(i) Interdependence of Microeconomics and Macroeconomics

Both Microeconomics and Macroeconomics are interdependent. Microeconomics is not always restricted to individual units and also Macroeconomics deals with aggregate at smaller level. The interdependence between the two can be studied in the following ways:

1. Microeconomics Depends on Macroeconomics: Micro-variables depend on behaviour of macro-variables i.e., decisions at micro level depend on decision taken at macro level. For example, Increase in overall tax rate would influence an individual decision to buy a T.V. set as its price goes up.

2. Macroeconomics depends on Microeconomics: Macro-variables depend on micro-economic variables i.e., decisions at macro level depend on decision at micro level. For example, Aggregate demand depends on the demand of individual households of the economy.

(ii) Difference between Micro and Macroeconomics:

a) Micro economics studies individual economic units whereas macroeconomics is concerned with economy as a whole.

b) The word micro has been derived from the Greek word micros which means small. On the other hand, macroeconomics is also derived from the Greek word macros which means large.

c) Micro economics was developed by classical and neo-classical economist Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall. Macroeconomics was developed by modern economist J.M. Keynes.

d) Micro economics is known as Price theory because it helps in determination of price on the basis of individual demand and supply. Macroeconomics is known as aggregate theory because it helps in determination of income and employment with help of aggregate demand and supply.

e) Microeconomics is concerned with allocation of resources whereas macroeconomics is concerned with the full utilization of resources.

(iii) Importance of Macroeconomics

Prof. J.K. Mehta feels that so long as men live in society, the economist cannot afford to neglect the study of macro-economy. The theoretical and the practical importance of macroeconomics would be clear from the following arguments:

1. Functioning of an Economy: Macroeconomic analysis is a paramount importance in getting us an idea of the functioning of an economic system. It is very essential for a proper and accurate knowledge of the behaviour pattern of the aggregative variables, as the description of a large and complex economic system is impossible in terms of numerous individual items.

2. Formulation of Economic Policies: Macroeconomics is a great help in the formulation of economic policies. The days of ‘Iaissez faire’ are over and government intervention in economic matters is an accomplished fact. Governments deals not with individuals but with groups and masses of individuals, thereby establishing the importance of macroeconomic studies.

3. Understanding Microeconomics: The study of macroeconomics is essential for the proper understanding of microeconomics. No micro economic law could be framed without a prior study of the aggregates; for example, the theory of individual firm could not have been formulated with reference to the behaviour pattern of one single firm, howsoever representative it might have been; the theory was possible only after the behaviour pattern of several firms had been examined and analysed.

b) Raj Pandey spends some part of his income on the purchase of apples and oranges. He buys different combinations of apples and oranges to achieve the same level of satisfaction. He knows the price of apples and oranges. He decides logically to buy different combinations of fruits according to the total amount, and price. Explain the following based on the above given information

1) Prepare imaginary schedule for indifference curve.

2) Graphical presentation for indifference curve.

3) Concept of Marginal Rate of substitution.

4) Properties of Indifference curve      (See Lesson-14)

6. Prepare any one project out of the given below.

a) Visit any manufacturing unit in your area. Collect information related to the production process of the unit. Prepare project work on “Return to Factor” which is an important law of production, and makes it one of the important components of economic study. Include the following topics in the project as a result of the factor

(i) Factors of production to utilized.

(ii) Variable factors.

(iii) Fixed factors.

(iv) Total/Average/Marginal productivity.

(v) Graphical presentation of law of variable proportion, and stages of production.

(vi) Stage to be preferred by manufacturer to produce goods, and services.

After completion of the project prepare five questions based on the project for better understanding. (See Lesson-17)

b) The prices of goods in the market are made on the basis of various forms of the market, its structures, graphs. The major topics you can cover in the project are the following:

(i) Types of market with its features.

(ii) Perfect competition, and price determination.

(iii) Application in the determination of floor price, and support price of commodities.

After completion of the project, prepare five questions based on the project for better understanding.         (See Lesson-23)

Ans: (i) Types of Market and their features

Perfect competition meaning.

Perfect Competition is a form of market in which there is a large number of buyers and sellers. They sell homogeneous goods. Firm produces only a small portion of the total output produced by the whole industry.

An industry is a group of different firms producing the same product. A single firm cannot affect the price by its individual efforts. Price is fixed by the industry. Firm is only a price taker and not a price-maker. It can sell the desired output only at the price-fixed by the industry. In such a market, price of the commodity is the same at every place.

There is also free entry and exit of the firms. Both the buyers and sellers have perfect information about the prevailing price in the market. Thus perfect competition is the name given to a market in which buyers and sellers compete with one another in the purchase and sale of a commodity.

Features of Perfect Competition:

– There is large number of buyers and sellers.

– Products are homogenous.

– Freedom of entry or exit in perfect competition.

– Demand is perfectly elastic.

– Firms are Price taker in perfectly competitive market.

Monopoly Market Meaning

Monopoly market is one in which there is only one seller of the product having no close substitutes to the commodities sold by the seller. The seller has full control over the supply of that commodity and also he is the price maker. There being only one firm, producing that product, there is no difference between the firm and industry in case of monopoly. Monopoly is a price maker not the price taker as in the case of perfect competition. Its demand curve slopes downward to the right.

Features of Monopoly:

– There exists only one seller.

– In monopoly, there is absence of competition.

– Monopoly may sell homogenous and differentiated products.

– Entry of new firms in the market is restricted.

– Demand is inelastic.

– Monopolist is price maker.

Monopolistic Competition Meaning

Monopolistic competition, as the name itself implies, is a blend of monopoly and perfect competition.  It refers to the market situation in which many producers produce and sell goods which are closely related to each other and close substitutes but they are not identical. In this respect each firm will have some monopoly at the same time the firm has to compete in the market will other firms as they produce close substitutes.  Also they are large number of sellers who follow an independent price policy.

Features of Monopolistic Competition

– Competition amongst monopolists.

– Products are different but close substitute of one another.

– Freedom of entry or exit of firms into the market.

– Prices are competitive in monopolistic competition.

– Selling costs are important in monopolistic competition.

Oligopoly Meaning

“Oligopoly” is a term derived from two Greek words “Oligos” meaning a few “pollein” meaning to sell. Thus Oligopoly refers to that form of imperfect competition where there will be only few sellers producing either a homogenous product which are close substitutes but not perfect substitutes or similar products.

There are only few sellers of a product under oligopoly due to which actions taken by any individual seller have a significant impact on other sellers. There is a personalized competition under oligopoly. All firms act as rivals of each other. The most important feature of oligopolistic market is interdependence in decision making.

Features of Oligopoly

– There is only few sellers and large number of buyers.

– Competition amongst the few sellers.

– Blocked entry / threat to entry of new firms.

– Decision of one firm may affect the decision of other firm.

– Selling costs are most important in oligopoly.

Though perfect competition is rare, almost a non-existent situation, yet we study price determination under the situation. A perfectly competitive market is one in which the number of buyers and sellers is very large, all engaged in buying and selling a homogeneous product without any artificial restriction and possessing perfect knowledge of a market at a time.

There are two parties which bargain in such a market, the buyers and the sellers. It is only when they agree, a commodity can be bought and sold at a certain price. Thus product pricing is influenced both by buyers and sellers i.e., by demand and supply.

The demand and supply are the two forces, which move in the opposite directions. Price is determined at a point where these two forces are equal, that is known as equilibrium price. In a perfectly competitive market, market demand and market supply determine the equilibrium price.

Equilibrium of a Firm under Perfect Competition

Meaning of Firm’s Equilibrium :

A firm is in equilibrium when it is satisfied with its existing amount of output. A firm in equilibrium has no tendency either to increase or decrease its output. It needs neither expansion nor contraction. It wants to earn maximum profits.

In the words of A.W. Stonier and D.C. Hague, “A firm will be in equilibrium when it is earning maximum money profits.”

Equilibrium of the firm can be analysed in both short-run and long-run periods. A firm can earn the maximum profits in the short run or may incur the minimum loss. But in the long run, it can earn only normal profit.

Equilibrium of the firm can be studied by two approaches:

1) Total Revenue and Total Cost Approach.

2) Marginal Cost and Marginal Revenue Approach.

Total Revenue and Total Cost Approach :

According to this approach, profits are the difference between total revenue and total cost.

Marginal Revenue and Marginal Cost Approach :

This analysis is based on the following assumptions:

a) All firms in an industry use homogeneous factors of production.

b) Their costs are equal. Therefore, all cost curves are uniform.

c) They use homogeneous plants so that their SAC curves are equal.

d) All firms are of equal efficiency.

e) All firms sell their products at the same price determined by demand and supply of the industry so that the price of each firm is equal to AR = MR.

According to this approach, a firm is in equilibrium when two conditions are fulfilled:

a) Marginal Cost should be equal to Marginal Revenue (MC = MR).

b) MC curve cuts MR curve from below.

Determination of Equilibrium of the Firm

Short-run Equilibrium of the Firm

The short run is a period of time in which the firm can vary its output by changing the variable factors of production in order to earn maximum profits or to incur minimum losses. The number of firms in the industry is fixed because neither the existing firms can leave nor new firms can enter it. The firm is in equilibrium when it is earning maximum profits as the difference between its total revenue and total cost. A firm is short run equilibrium may face any of the three situations:

1) Super Normal Profits (AR > AC) :

A firm is in equilibrium when its marginal cost is equal to marginal revenue and marginal cost curve cuts marginal revenue from below. A firm is in equilibrium earns super normal profit, when average revenue is more than its average cost. It can also be explained with the help of following diagram:

In this figure, output of the firm is shown on OX-axis and cost/revenue on OY-axis. MC is the marginal cost and AC is average cost curve. PP is the average revenue and marginal revenue curve (MR = AR). Supposing OP is the price determined by the industry. At this price, firm’s equilibrium will be at point E, where marginal cost is equal to marginal revenue and marginal cost curve cuts marginal revenue curve from below.

Equilibrium output is OM. At this output AR (price) = EM and AC = AM. Since AR (EM) > AC (AM), firm is earning EA super normal profit per unit of output.

Per Unit super normal profit = EA

Total Super-Normal Profit = EABP

2) Normal Profits (AR = AC) :

Normal profits cover just the reward for entrepreneurial services and are included in the cost of production. So that, a firm in equilibrium earns normal profits when its average cost is equal to the average revenue i.e. AC = AR.

In this figure, output of the firm is shown on OX-axis and cost/revenue on OY-axis. MC is the marginal cost and AC is average cost curve. PP is the average revenue and marginal revenue curve (MR = AR). Supposing OP is the price determined by the industry. At this price, firm’s equilibrium will be at point E, where marginal cost is equal to marginal revenue and marginal cost curve cuts marginal revenue curve from below. The firm earns normal profits at equilibrium output because its average cost and average revenue are equal.

Normal Profits = MC = MR = AC = AR.

3) Minimum Loss (AR < AC)

A firm in equilibrium may incur minimum loss when the average cost is more than the average revenue and average revenue is equal to average variable cost. Even if, the firm discontinues its production, in the short run, it will have to bear the loss of fixed costs. Loss of fixed costs is the minimum loss of the firm.

At equilibrium point an (AC) is more than EN (AR). In other words, average cost is more than average revenue by AE which represents per unit loss. As such firm’s total loss is AEPB.

Per Unit Loss = AE

Total Loss       = AEPB

From the above discussion, we may conclude from the above discussion that in the short-run each firm may be making either super normal profits, or normal profits or losses depending upon the price of the product.  

Long-run Equilibrium of the Firm:

In the long-run, it is possible to make more adjustments than in the short-run. The firm can adjust its plant capacity and scale of operations to the changed circumstances. Therefore, all costs are vari­able. Firms must earn only normal profits. In case the price is above the long-run AC curve firms will be earning super normal profits.

Attracted by them, new firms will enter the industry and super normal profits will be competed away. If the price is below the LAC curve firms will be incurring losses. As a result, some of the firms will leave the industry so that no firm earns more than normal profits. Thus “in the long-run firms are in equilibrium when they have adjusted their plant so as to produce at the mini­mum point of their long-run AC curve, which is tangent (at this point) to the demand (AR) curve defined by the market price” so that they earn normal profits.

It’s Assumptions: This analysis is based on the following assumptions:

a) Firms are free to enter into or leave the industry.

b) All firms are of equal efficiency.

c) All factors are homogeneous. They can be obtained at constant and uniform prices.

d) Cost curves of firms are uniform.

e) The plants of firm: are equal having given technology.

f) All firms have perfect knowledge about price and output.

Determination:

Given these assumptions, each firm of the industry will be in the equilibrium in the following two conditions.

(1) In equilibrium, its short-run marginal cost (SMC) must equal to its long-run marginal cost (LMC) as well as its short-run average cost (SAC) and its long-run average cost (LAC) and both should be equal to MR=AR=P. Thus the first equilibrium condition is:

SMC = LMC = MR = AR = P = SAC = LAC at its minimum point, and

(2) LMC curve must cut MR curve from below.

Both these conditions of equilibrium are satisfied at point E in Figure 3 where SMC and LMC curves cut from below SAC and LAC curves at their minimum point E and SMC and LMC curves cut AR = MR curve from below. All curves meet at this point E and the firm produces OQ optimum quantity and sell it at OP price.

Since we assume equal costs of all the firms of industry, all firms will be in equilibrium m the long-run. At OP price a firm will have neither a tendency to leave nor enter the industry and all firms will earn normal profit.

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American Economic Review

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US economic growth for last quarter is revised up slightly to a 1.4% annual rate

The American economy expanded at a 1.4% annual pace from January through March, the slowest quarterly growth since spring 2022, the government said in a slight upgrade from its previous estimate

WASHINGTON -- The American economy expanded at a 1.4% annual pace from January through March, the slowest quarterly growth since spring 2022, the government said Thursday in a slight upgrade from its previous estimate. Consumer spending grew at just a 1.5% rate, down from an initial estimate of 2%, in a sign that high interest rates may be taking a toll on the economy.

The Commerce Department had previously estimated that the gross domestic product — the economy's total output of goods and services — advanced at a 1.3% rate last quarter.

The first quarter's GDP growth marked a sharp pullback from a strong 3.4% pace during the final three months of 2023. Still, Thursday's report showed that the January-March slowdown was caused mainly by two factors — a surge in imports and a drop in business inventories — that can bounce around from quarter to quarter and don't necessarily reflect the underlying health of the economy.

Imports shaved 0.82 percentage point off first-quarter growth. Lower inventories subtracted 0.42 percentage point.

Picking up the slack was business investment, which the government said rose at a 4.4% annual pace last quarter, up from its previous estimate of 3.2%. Higher investment in factories and other nonresidential buildings and in software and other types of intellectual property helped boost the increase.

After growing at a solid annual pace of more than 3% in the second half of 2023, consumer spending decelerated sharply last quarter. Spending on appliances, furniture and other goods fell by a 2.3% annual rate, while spending on travel, restaurant meals and other services rose at a 3.3% rate.

Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for the Independent Advisor Alliance, called the downshift in consumer spending "a cause for concern.'' Consumers account for around 70% of U.S. economic activity.

“The economy remained resilient in the first quarter," said Gregory Daco, chief economist at the tax and consulting firm EY. But ”private-sector demand growth was cooling, led by more consumer prudence. Importantly though, the economy is not retrenching, with business investment retaining moderate momentum."

Many economists have been expecting growth to strengthen in the current April-June quarter. But an Oxford Economics forecasting model — based on economic statistics that have been reported so far — points instead to a tepid 1.3% growth rate this quarter.

The U.S. economy, the world’s biggest, has proved surprisingly resilient in the face of higher interest rates. The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark rate 11 times in 2022 and 2023, to a 23-year high, to try to tame the worst bout of inflation in four decades. Most economists predicted that the much higher consumer borrowing rates that resulted from the Fed’s hikes would send the economy into a recession.

It didn’t happen. The economy has kept growing, though at a slower rate, and employers have kept hiring. In May, the nation added a strong 272,000 jobs , although the unemployment rate edged up for a second straight month, to a still-low 4%. At the same time, overall inflation, as measured by the government’s main price gauge, has tumbled from a peak of 9.1% in 2022 to 3.3% , still above the Fed’s 2% target level.

The state of the economy is sure to be a central topic Thursday night when President Joe Biden will debate Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Though the economy remains healthy by most measures and inflation is way down from its peak, many Americans say they’re frustrated that overall prices are still well above their pre-pandemic levels. Costlier rents and groceries are particular sources of discontent, and Trump has sought to pin the blame on Biden in a threat to the president’s re-election bid.

A measure of inflation in the January-March GDP report showed that price pressures accelerated at the start of 2024. Consumer prices rose at a 3.4% annual pace, up from 1.8% in the fourth quarter of 2023. Excluding volatile food and energy costs, so-called core inflation rose at a 3.7% annual clip, up from 2% in each of the previous two quarters.

In light of the still-elevated inflation pressures, the Fed’s policymakers earlier this month collectively predicted that they would cut their benchmark rate just once in 2024, down from their previous forecast of three rate cuts. Most economists expect the first rate cut to come in September, with possibly a second cut to come in December.

Thursday’s report was the third and final government estimate of first-quarter GDP growth. The Commerce Department will issue its first estimate of the current quarter’s economic performance on July 25.

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Construction workers are dying by suicide at an alarming rate

In a swath of Arizona desert that will soon be home to a multibillion-dollar semiconductor plant, Justin Azbill stood before thousands of construction workers and told the story of the day he almost took his life.

Pressure had been building on Azbill for months at his job as safety director for a large Boston construction firm during the height of the pandemic. Sleep-deprived and overwhelmed, Azbill said he packed a lethal means to harm himself in his lunch sack.

But as he was preparing to leave for work that morning, his daughter asked him to stay home with her that day. He did and the day provided a moment of clarity for Azbill, who then sought out help from a friend.

Azbill, who got his start in construction as an ironworker, has been traveling to construction sites across the country sharing his story as he and others in the industry race to address what they say is an epidemic of suicide among their colleagues — many of whom are under increasing strain amid a nationwide construction boom and a shortage of workers.

“In the construction industry, we’ve generationally been taught that if you talk to someone about a weakness or you’re struggling then you’re weak and you won’t get hired,” said Azbill. “One of the reasons I talk about it so freely is so people know that it’s normal and it’s OK.”

The construction industry has one of the highest suicide rates among professions — with the rate among male construction workers 75% higher than men in the general population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An estimated 6,000 construction workers by suicide in 2022, an increase from 2021, according to the most recent data available. That compares to around 1,000 who died from a construction work-related injury.

“When you’re more likely to be killed by your own hands than to get killed in a jobsite accident, that’s a crisis in our industry,” said Brian Turmail, vice president of public affairs and workforce for the Associated General Contractors of America. “We know pretty much what needs to happen to protect people physically. We’re figuring out how to protect people mentally.”

While construction wages are up and jobs are plentiful, those in the industry fear that the pressures on their workers’ mental health are only getting worse. A recent surge in construction projects, spurred by billions of federal dollars for infrastructure, clean energy and semiconductor projects have put increasing strain on an already stretched workforce.

As a result, workers are putting in more than 10-hour days in harsh weather conditions, facing high-pressure deadlines and having to spend months away from home living in hotels, temporary workforce housing or their vehicles. There is also the risk of workplace injuries and a higher rate of opioid misuse along with the general financial instability of hourly work.

“There’s a lot that goes into how stressful it is, not just physically, but mentally and psychologically,” said Josh Vitale, a superintendent for Hoffman Construction, the general contractor overseeing the Intel Arizona project where Azbill recently spoke. “I think progress is fantastic, but we have to realize that we are legitimately wringing the life out of people.”

One of the biggest building booms is being driven by the semiconductor industry. Companies are planning to spend $450 billion on 80 new semiconductor manufacturing projects in 25 states as part of a nationwide push led by the Biden administration to increase U.S. manufacturing of high-tech chips that go into everything from cars to military equipment, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association.

In Arizona, workers building the $20 billion Intel facility typically work two 60-hour weeks followed by a 50-hour week for months at a time in the hot Arizona weather with no paid vacation time, said Vitale. Because of a shortage of local workers, many are coming in from out of state, leaving behind friends and family and living for months or years in hotels or temporary housing.

For Azbill, a number of factors came together in a matter of months that pushed him to a place where he was close to ending his own life.

Azbill had spent decades working his way up the ranks of the construction industry, and when the pandemic hit, he was thrust into the role of Covid czar, working in an emotionally challenging and negative environment as his company tried to navigate the pandemic on its worksites, he said.

“I was working 19-hour days, and then I couldn’t sleep at night. Try that for six months and see where someone would be,” he said. “You start seeing everything negatively, there is this darkness. I was crying myself to sleep.”

At home, his relationship with his wife and daughter was fraying because for months he had barely been around, but he worried that if he cut back his hours at work he would let his family down financially, he said.

“At the time, I didn’t think that my wife or my daughter really cared for me because for six months I was angry all the time, they were cautious being around me, they didn’t want to cause more problems for me,” Azbill said.

After about six months, Azbill said he hit a breaking point. There was a Covid outbreak on a jobsite after some workers weren’t following safety protocols. The incident angered him in a way he’d never experienced. He said he blacked out and started having thoughts of suicide. He knew something was wrong so he went home to try to get some sleep.

He woke up at 2:30 a.m. the next morning and decided he was going to take his own life. He wrote three goodbye letters: one to his mother, one to his wife and one to his daughter.

“Before I left, I said, ‘Goodbye. I’m going to work, I love you guys,’” he said.

Then, his 8-year-old daughter, who was doing remote school, came running out of her room.

“She says, ‘Papa, Papa,’ and anytime she calls me Papa she steals my heart. It’s also her way of saying she loves me,” Azbill said. “I think she knew I was struggling bad, and I was her best friend. She said, ‘Papa, I love you, spend time with me, I don’t like my teacher and I don’t like school, can you spend time with me today?’ And so I did.”

Azbill stayed home from work that day and watched his daughter.

In the afternoon, he got on a weekly Zoom call with dozens of other safety professionals in the industry. Near the end of the call, one of the participants began crying, talking about losing one of his best friends to Covid and shared how he was struggling with the loss.

“I call that my clarity moment. It completely changed my mindset,” he said. “I realized I can’t do that. I’m not going to do what I was thinking.”

After the Zoom meeting, Azbill called a friend and shared that he was struggling. His friend told him how important he was to those in his life and that people are grateful for all he does. That phone call, he said, helped save his life.

At the Intel project, the site’s general contractor, Hoffman Construction, has tried to tackle the risk of suicide in a number of ways across its worksites after the company lost two of its supervisors to suicide over the past several years, said Vitale. Intel doesn’t employ any of the construction workers on the site or have direct involvement in the construction process.

The company has created community center-style spaces on its worksites where workers can have some personal space, attend a substance misuse meeting or talk with a peer who can help connect them to mental health resources. It also started including discussions about mental health in its regular staff meetings.

“It would be rare to find someone in the industry who hasn’t known a person that has taken their life within the last year or two,” said Vitale. “As an industry, we just keep putting more and more pressure on the worker to outperform what they’ve done before, and at some point it’s just untenable.”

Vitale has gotten involved in a number of efforts to reduce suicides in the industry after he struggled with his own mental health crisis after the loss of his baby, he said. Several times a week, he said, he is involved in a suicide intervention at the Arizona jobsite and has counseled dozens of colleagues thinking about hurting themselves, like a young carpenter he’s been talking to recently who is struggling with the loss of his mother and grandmother.

But even with those efforts, the worksite hasn’t been immune from loss — an employee for one of the project’s contractors recently died by suicide at home over the weekend.

Alarm bells about the high rate of suicide started going off in the construction industry in 2016 when a CDC report showed construction workers had one of the highest rates of suicide by profession, leading various industry groups to start looking for solutions. For every 100,000 male construction workers, 56 died by suicide in 2022, according to CDC data. That compared to 32 suicide deaths per 100,000 men in the general population. Males have a significantly greater rate of suicide than females.

A key focus for the industry has been trying to tackle the taboo nature of talking about mental health and seeking treatment. Industry organizations have been using everything from PSA-style videos and worksite talks to stickers, poker chips and magnets plastered around job sites informing workers of the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Groups have also been creating resources like worksite talks and suicide prevention training courses to help guide employers in how to talk about mental health with their employees.

Construction firm Bechtel said earlier this year that it would spent $7 million toward an effort with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention to reach 500,000 construction workers with industry-specific mental health programs.

Shannon Niles, safety director for construction firm Paric Corp., said he experienced the mental toll the job can take firsthand after witnessing a co-worker die on a jobsite when a trench collapsed on him. Niles tried to dig the man out but was unable to save him. He said he bottled up the trauma of the incident, becoming angrier and more withdrawn and drinking heavily until his family intervened and urged him to get help.

But Niles said there is an industry culture that discourages many from asking for help and a fear that showing any perceived weakness could jeopardize their job prospects.

“Construction workers think they’re so big and bad, that they don’t ever need any help. But we’ve got to realize we’re all human beings, and we all need help at some point,” Niles said.

Giving added urgency to the issue is an industrywide shortage of workers. At the start of 2024, the construction industry needed an additional 500,000 workers on top of the normal pace of hiring to meet the expected demand, according to Associated Builders and Contractors.

“You spend a couple-hundred-thousand dollars to train a superintendent for 20 years, and you’re going to throw them out the door now because they have a mental health problem or substance abuse?” said Mike Pugh, who oversees safety for DPR Construction. “They’re finding financially it’s not viable, it doesn’t pay any more to ignore and separate these issues because we don’t have anybody to replace them because there’s a worker shortage.”

It’s a stark change from when Pugh was facing his own mental health struggles more than two decades ago. Pugh said he began a downward spiral with drug and alcohol addiction following several traumatic deaths in his family. At the time, he was working in a high-level position for an HVAC company that worked on large-scale commercial construction projects.

“My bosses are watching me circle the drain and nobody’s really saying anything,” Pugh said. “As men, we’re taught to take care of your stuff, take care of your family. When you’re unable to do that you feel even more shame and guilt and it just all piles on until I just kind of snapped and couldn’t do it anymore.”

Ultimately, it was his brother who urged him to get help, and he has been in recovery for 25 years. Like Azbill, he now travels the country talking at worksites about the need for a culture change in the industry.

He thinks the message is starting to get through. Recently, he was at a jobsite in California where he had spoken about a year ago. While talking with the site’s safety manager, a laborer approached him and pulled him aside so no one would see them talking.

“He tells me, ‘Sir, after your talk last year, I went home and told my wife for the first time about my drinking, and I’ve been sober for five months,’” Pugh said. “We both started crying and hugging.”

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call the network, previously known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, at  800-273-8255 , text HOME to 741741 or visit  SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources  for additional resources.

Shannon Pettypiece is senior policy reporter for NBC News digital.

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Sri Lanka reaches deal on debt restructuring with bilateral creditors including China and France

Supporters of Sri Lanka’s President Ranil Wickremesinghe watch a televised speech in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Wednesday, June 26, 2023. President Ranil Wickremesinghe in a televised address to the nation announced that the country had reached agreements with bilateral creditors including Japan, India, France and China, a key step in the island nation’s economic recovery since defaulting on its debt repayment in 2022. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

A supporter of Sri Lanka’s President Ranil Wickremesinghe cheers as he watches a televised speech in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Wednesday, June 26, 2023. President Ranil Wickremesinghe in a televised address to the nation announced that the country had reached agreements with bilateral creditors including Japan, India, France and China, a key step in the island nation’s economic recovery since defaulting on its debt repayment in 2022. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

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COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s President Ranil Wickremesinghe announced a debt restructuring deal with countries including India, France, Japan and China in a televised address to the nation Wednesday. The agreement marks a key step in the country’s economic recovery after defaulting on debt repayment in 2022.

Sri Lanka is under an International Monetary Fund bailout program and the debt treatment deal is expected to reopen the doors to bilateral transactions and the resumption of foreign projects stalled when the island nation defaulted.

“This morning in Paris, Sri Lanka reached a final agreement with our official bilateral creditors. Similarly, we signed another agreement with China’s Exim Bank today in Beijing. ... Sri Lanka won,” Wickremesinghe said.

Sri Lanka declared bankruptcy in April 2022 and suspended repayments on some $83 billion in domestic and foreign loans amid a severe foreign exchange crisis that led to a severe shortage of essentials such as food, medicine, fuel and cooking gas, and hours-long power cuts.

Sri Lanka’s crisis was largely the result of staggering economic mismanagement combined with fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, which along with 2019 terrorism attacks devastated its important tourism industry. The coronavirus crisis also disrupted the flow of remittances from Sri Lankans working abroad.

Additionally, the then-government slashed taxes in 2019, depleting the treasury just as the virus hit. Foreign exchange reserves plummeted, leaving Sri Lanka unable to pay for imports or defend its beleaguered currency, the rupee.

Wickremesinghe said with these agreements, Sri Lanka will be able to defer all bilateral loan instalment payments until 2028. Furthermore, Sri Lanka will be able to repay all the loans on concessional terms, with an extended period until 2043.

According to a previous president’s office statement, the agreements would cover $10 billion, but further details on the mode of restructuring were not immediately announced.

By 2022, Sri Lanka had to repay about $6 billion in foreign debt every year, amounting to about 9.2% of gross domestic product. The agreement would enable Sri Lanka to maintain debt payments at less than 4.5% of GDP between 2027 and 2032.

As Wickremesinghe addressed the nation, his supporters the watched the speech on a giant screen in the capital Colombo and celebrated the announcement by lighting firecrackers and partaking traditional milk rice.

The economic upheaval led to a political crisis that forced then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign in 2022. The Parliament then elected Wickremesinghe as president.

Sri Lanka suspended repayment of its debt as it ran short of foreign currency needed to pay for imports of fuel and other essentials. Shortages led to street protests that changed the country’s leadership. The IMF approved a four-year bailout program last March.

The economic situation has improved under Wickremesinghe and severe shortages of food, fuel and medicine have largely abated. But public dissatisfaction has grown over the government’s effort to increase revenue by raising electricity bills and imposing heavy new income taxes on professionals and businesses, as part of the government’s efforts to meet the IMF conditions.

After Sri Lanka declared bankruptcy, all projects funded by foreign loans were also halted.

on Wednesday, Wickremesinghe said the new agreements would pave way to resume the foreign funded projects such as highways, light railway and airport development and also initiate new projects too.

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U.s. economic growth for last quarter is revised up slightly to a 1.4% annual rate.

WASHINGTON — The American economy expanded at a 1.4% annual pace from January through March, the slowest quarterly growth since spring 2022, the government said Thursday in a slight upgrade from its previous estimate. Consumer spending grew at just a 1.5% rate, down from an initial estimate of 2%, in a sign that high interest rates may be taking a toll on the economy.

The Commerce Department had previously estimated that the gross domestic product - the economy’s total output of goods and services - advanced at a 1.3% rate last quarter.

The first quarter’s GDP growth marked a sharp pullback from a strong 3.4% pace during the final three months of 2023. Still, Thursday’s report showed that the January-March slowdown was caused mainly by two factors - a surge in imports and a drop in business inventories - that can bounce around from quarter to quarter and don’t necessarily reflect the underlying health of the economy.

Imports shaved 0.82 percentage point off first-quarter growth. Lower inventories subtracted 0.42 percentage point.

Picking up the slack was business investment, which the government said rose at a 4.4% annual pace last quarter, up from its previous estimate of 3.2%. Higher investment in factories and other nonresidential buildings and in software and other types of intellectual property helped boost the increase.

After growing at a solid annual pace of more than 3% in the second half of 2023, consumer spending decelerated sharply last quarter. Spending on appliances, furniture and other goods fell by a 2.3% annual rate, while spending on travel, restaurant meals and other services rose at a 3.3% rate.

Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for the Independent Advisor Alliance, called the downshift in consumer spending “a cause for concern.’’ Consumers account for around 70% of U.S. economic activity.

Most economists think growth has picked up in the current quarter. A forecasting tool produced by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta predicts a vigorous 3% annual growth rate.

The U.S. economy, the world’s biggest, has proved surprisingly resilient in the face of higher interest rates. The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark rate 11 times in 2022 and 2023, to a 23-year high, to try to tame the worst bout of inflation in four decades. Most economists predicted that the much higher consumer borrowing rates that resulted from the Fed’s hikes would send the economy into a recession.

It didn’t happen. The economy has kept growing, though at a slower rate, and employers have kept hiring. In May, the nation added a strong 272,000 jobs, although the unemployment rate edged up for a second straight month, to a still-low 4%. At the same time, overall inflation, as measured by the government’s main price gauge, has tumbled from a peak of 9.1% in 2022 to 3.3%, still above the Fed’s 2% target level.

The state of the economy is sure to be a central topic Thursday night when President Joe Biden will debate Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Though the economy remains healthy by most measures and inflation is way down from its peak, many Americans say they’re frustrated that overall prices are still well above their pre-pandemic levels. Costlier rents and groceries are particular sources of discontent, and Trump has sought to pin the blame on Biden in a threat to the president’s re-election bid.

A measure of inflation in the January-March GDP report showed that price pressures accelerated at the start of 2024. Consumer prices rose at a 3.4% annual pace, up from 1.8% in the fourth quarter of 2023. Excluding volatile food and energy costs, so-called core inflation rose at a 3.7% annual clip, up from 2% in each of the previous two quarters.

In light of the still-elevated inflation pressures, the Fed’s policymakers earlier this month collectively predicted that they would cut their benchmark rate just once in 2024, down from their previous forecast of three rate cuts. Most economists expect the first rate cut to come in September, with possibly a second cut to come in December.

“An ongoing deceleration in consumption will have implications for the (economic) growth trajectory over coming quarters,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics. “But a weaker growth path that leads to a Fed pivot to lower rates could be supportive of households and businesses over time.”

Thursday’s report was the third and final government estimate of first-quarter GDP growth. The Commerce Department will issue its first estimate of the current quarter’s economic performance on July 25.

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Microsoft unveils new research and technology to bridge the disconnect between leaders and employees so companies can thrive amid economic uncertainty

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Microsoft expands Microsoft Viva platform to connect employees to company culture, business goals and one another

REDMOND, Wash. — Sept. 22, 2022 — On Thursday, Microsoft Corp. released a Work Trend Index Pulse report, “Hybrid Work Is Just Work. Are We Doing It Wrong?” The company also announced new capabilities in Microsoft Viva, its employee experience platform, designed to help empower and energize employees in a time of economic uncertainty.

The data makes clear that hybrid work has created a growing disconnect between employees and leaders. They’re at odds about what constitutes productivity, how to maintain autonomy while ensuring accountability, the benefits of flexibility and the role of the office. To bridge this gap, a new approach is needed that recognizes work is no longer just a place but an experience that needs to transcend time and space so employees can stay engaged and connected no matter where they are working.

“Thriving employees are what will give organizations a competitive advantage in today’s dynamic economic environment,” said Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO, Microsoft. “Today, we’re announcing new innovations across our employee experience platform Microsoft Viva to help leaders end productivity paranoia, rebuild social capital, and re-recruit and re-energize their employees.”

To help leaders navigate the new realities of work, the Work Trend Index Pulse report [1] points to three urgent pivots every leader should make:

• End productivity paranoia: 87% of employees report they are productive at work, but 85% of leaders say the shift to hybrid work has made it challenging to have confidence their employees are being productive. Leaders need to create clarity and alignment around company goals, eliminate busywork that doesn’t support those goals and listen to their people — 57% of companies are rarely, if ever, collecting employee feedback.
• Embrace that people come in for each other: 73% of employees say they need a better reason to go into the office besides company expectations — but they would be motivated to go in if they could socialize with co-workers (84%) or rebuild team bonds (85%). Digital communication will be crucial to keep people connected inside and out the office — both employees and leaders rank communication as the No. 1 most critical skill needed to be successful in their roles this year.
• Re-skill to re-recruit your employees: 55% of employees say the best way to develop their skills is to change companies. However, they also say they would stay longer at their company if it was easier to change jobs internally (68%) or if they could benefit more from learning and development support (76%).

To address these challenges, Microsoft is expanding its employee experience platform Microsoft Viva to help companies deliver an employee experience optimized for the way people now work. Today, Microsoft is announcing several new and enhanced capabilities coming to Viva:

• Viva Pulse is a new app that will enable managers and team leads to seek regular and confidential feedback on their team’s experience. Viva Pulse uses smart templates and research-backed questions to help managers pinpoint what’s working well and where to focus, and also provides suggested learning and actions to address team needs.
• Viva Amplify is a new app that will empower leaders and communicators to elevate their message and reach employees where they are with consistency and impact. The app centralizes communications campaigns, offers writing guidance to improve message resonance, enables publishing across multiple channels and distribution groups in Microsoft 365, and provides metrics for improvement.
• Answers in Viva is a new capability that will use AI to match employee questions to answers and experts across the organization to help put collective knowledge to work for all employees.
• People in Viva is a new capability that will use AI to create rich profile cards with details on an employee’s interests, knowledge and team goals to help colleagues easily discover connections, experts and insights across the organization. These insights will be available through Microsoft 365 profile cards and as a new app.
• Microsoft recently launched Viva Engage, which fosters digital community building through conversations and self-expression tools with stories and storylines. Leadership Corner is coming to Viva Engage as a space to invite employees to interact directly with leadership, share ideas and perspectives, participate in organization initiatives, and more.
• Viva Goals helps organizations align employee work to business outcomes. New integrations in Viva Goals will bring goals into the flow of work including a richer integration with Microsoft Teams to check in on OKRs, an extension in Azure DevOps to complete work items, a connection to Power BI datasets to track KPIs and Key Results, and integrations with Microsoft Planner and Microsoft Project for automatic project management updates.
• Enhanced integrations between Viva Learning and LinkedIn Learning will make it even easier for people to access content from LinkedIn Learning Hub right in the flow of work in Teams. Learners will see all their LinkedIn Learning Hub content synced, including custom content, curated learning paths and the courses they have already completed, all reflected directly within Viva. And administrators will be able to set the integration up directly within their settings on LinkedIn Learning Hub — no APIs needed.
• Viva Sales, the first role-based experience app in the platform, will be generally available Oct. 3. Viva Sales brings together a seller’s CRM with Microsoft 365 and Teams to provide a more streamlined and AI-powered selling experience — right in the tools they’re using every day to connect with customers and close deals. Microsoft is announcing a partnership with Seismic to personalize and scale customer engagements through AI-generated content recommendations.
• To streamline access to Viva and help employees start their day on track, a new home experience in Viva Connections will bring all the Viva apps together in one place, and updates to the Viva briefing email will provide more personalized productivity recommendations to help employees catch up on work, meetings and learning.

The new Viva capabilities will begin rolling out to customers in early 2023.

To learn more, visit the Official Microsoft Blog , Microsoft 365 Blog and the new Work Trend Index Pulse report .

Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

[1] The Work Trend Index Pulse report is based on an external study of 20,000 people in 11 countries, along with analysis of trillions of Microsoft 365 productivity signals, LinkedIn labor trends and Glint People Science insights.

For more information, press only:

Microsoft Media Relations, WE Communications, (425) 638-7777,  [email protected]

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at  http://news.microsoft.com . Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at  https://news.microsoft.com/microsoft-public-relations-contacts .

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