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“Teaching Chain-Weight Real GDP Measures,”
Journal of Economic Education
Volume 34, Number 3, Summer 2003, pp. 224-234

Miles B. Cahill
Associate Professor
Department of Economics
College of the Holy Cross
Worcester, MA  01610
Comments may be sent to mcahill@holycross.edu
my web page


Outline



Overview

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.

 
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.
 
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.
 

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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Link to text of paper

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Supporting documents for Figures in paper

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Links in paper

Survey of Current Business articles that introduced chain-weight measures

Chain-weight and fixed-weight GDP historical data

Rossiter JEE (2000) paper that reviews chain-weight statistics

Cahill and Kosicki papers

Review (Fed-St. Louis) papers that review problems with fixed-weight indexes

At What Price? Conceptualizing and Measuring Cost-of-Living and Price Indexes

Other articles on chain-weight GDP

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Other useful spreadsheet and teaching economics links

On-line Journals

Other sources

A recent google search of "economics and Excel" produced 193,000 hits. Here are a few useful sites:

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