Your niece just started her college career with a major in economics. She is curious as to the interrelationship between the success of an economy and the financial markets, concepts, and financial institutions. Accordingly, she has developed a list of questions addressing these issues and has asked that you explain the ideas.
- What are the financial markets and what purposes do they serve?
- What are financial intermediaries? How do these intermediaries function in the economy?
- What is a federal government budget deficit? What is the national debt? How does a budget deficit affect the economy?
She is also curious about the time value of money concepts. Specifically, she has the following questions about these concepts:
- Why are consumers considered to be risk averse? What methods could used to deal with risk?
- It has been said that a dollar received today is worth more than a dollar received tomorrow. What does this mean and what is the significance to the economy?
- What is the difference between the present value of a future sum of money and the future value of a present sum of money? What is the significance of these concepts to economics?
- If you deposited $1,000 in an account paying 6% interest compounded annually, how long would it take to double?
Deliverables:
- Submit an 3-6 page paper in Microsoft Word format, to the W3: Assignment 1 Dropbox by Saturday, November 28, 2015, addressing the above-noted items.
- Create a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation of 5-10 slides that summarizes your findings in your report. Post your presentation in the Assignment 1 Discussion Area by Saturday, November 28, 2015.
- Comment on at least two other presentations and identify the strengths and weaknesses of each.