Overview
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This web site is the companion to the article "Teaching Chain-Weight
Real GDP Measures," in the (forthcoming) Journal of Economic Education.
Below, this page contains links to the original spreadsheets used and data used to generate the charts in
the paper, the completed spreadsheet exercises discussed
in the paper, step-by-step student instruction sheets
for these exercises, links to material referred to
in the paper, and supplementary links that may
be useful to those who use spreadsheets in teaching economics. The supplementary
links include links to the on-line journal Computers in Economics Education
Review, spreadsheet exercises appearing in the JEE Online section,
and links to several other papers and resources.
I am grateful to George Kosicki, Betty Blecha and an anonymous referee
for very helpful suggestions.
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| Summary of paper |
| The article reviews the chain-weight, or "Fisher ideal" index
measures employed by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) since 1996, and
provides spreadsheet-based applications with which key concepts may be taught.
The first exercise introduces the concept of the chain-weight index by comparing
it to Laspeyres, Paasche and true ideal indexes with the use of utility
analysis. (It should be noted that "ideal" is a technical term,
and these so-called ideal indexes are by no means perfect. Furthermore,
the chain-weight method does not address several other index issues.) The
second exercise is a step-by-step process to calculate chain-weight index
statistics. These examples may be particularly useful because many intermediate-level
textbooks treat this topic casually, if at all. Furthermore, the examples
provide an opportunity to teach some fundamental economic concepts and useful
Excel functions. |
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| Web supplement |
| For ease of viewing, it is recommended that you follow your browser's
instructions to configure your browser to automatically open the Excel files
with your Excel 97 (or later) spreadsheet program. If your browser
is not already so configured, after clicking on a link you will likely be
prompted with a window giving you several options. One of the options
should be "Pick Application", "Pick App", or something similar. Click
on this option and follow instructions. You will only have to go through
this procedure once. It will allow you to view the text files and
spreadsheet files in separate windows by clicking on them, and eliminates
the need to save the files to your local drive first. Of course, you are
welcome to save and use the files on your local drive. |
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The completed spreadsheets for the exercises have been annotated using
the "comment" tool. Cells with comments have a red triangle in the
top right corner. Moving the mouse over the cell will display the
comment. The comments have been written to explain the setup of
the spreadsheets, highlight important features, give special instructions,
and provide tips. All spreadsheet workbooks are in Microsoft Excel 97
format.
The student instruction sheets provide a basic review of the material
covered in the exercises, and step-by-step instructions for constructing
the sheets. The instructions are provided in PDF and Word 97 formats for
editing purposes. (The Adobe Acrobat Reader is a free utility for viewing
PDF files, and is available from adobe.com).
The links to papers are also in Adobe Acrobat or HTML format. The data
are in text format.
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