What Is Aggregate Supply? The Production Side of the Economy
What is aggregate supply: the total output firms will produce at a given price level, flexible while costs are sticky,...
Macroeconomic Trends and Analysis
Understand the bigger economic picture through macroeconomic trends and analysis
What Is the GDP Deflator? The Broadest Measure of Inflation
GDP deflator explained: nominal GDP divided by real GDP, the inflation measure covering everything an economy produces and hiding inside...
What Is Aggregate Demand? The Spending Side of the Economy
What is aggregate demand: total planned spending by households, firms, government, and foreigners, the four buyers whose decisions add up...
What Is Productivity? Output per Hour and Living Standards
What is productivity, in one ratio: output per hour worked. American output per hour has doubled since 1990, which is...
US Labor Market: 316,000 Jobs in a Year
The US labor market added 316,000 jobs in twelve months, the weakest outside a recession since 1990, while unemployment stayed...
What Is a Stock? Shares, Ownership, and How Equity Markets Work
What is a stock? A unit of ownership carrying a claim on whatever remains after every promise a company has...
What Is a Subsidy? How Governments Support Producers and Consumers
What is a subsidy? A government transfer that lowers what buyers pay or raises what sellers receive, and the largest...
What Is a Tax? Types, Incidence, and Why Governments Collect Them
What is a tax? A compulsory payment that buys nothing specific, and one whose real burden falls on whichever side...
What Is a Bond? A Beginner’s Guide to How Governments and Firms Borrow
What is a bond? A loan split into tradable units with a fixed coupon and maturity date, and a market...
Consumer Sentiment Hit Its Lowest Level Since 1990
In May 2026 the University of Michigan’s index of consumer sentiment fell to 44.8, the lowest reading in the thirty-six...