10.3886/ICPSR03718.v1 Gerber, James B. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research 2003 economic history economics instructional materials 2003-10-10 2003-10-10 1929 1996 aggregate data 3718 1 These instructional materials were prepared for use with a time series of aggregate United States economic data collected from the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. Department of Labor. The data file (an SPSS portable file) and accompanying documentation are provided to assist educators in instructing students about the use of empirical analysis in the study of macroeconomics and about the interplay of economic theory and empirical studies in macroeconomics. An instructor's handout has also been included. This handout contains the following sections, among others: (1) a brief overview and history of the field of macroeconomics, (2) an exploration of this dataset using descriptive statistics, (3) a discussion of how to test hypotheses about data using t-statistics, (4) a discussion of the testing of relationships within data using correlation, (5) a discussion of the testing of relationships within data using regression, (6) a demonstration of simple regression on estimating growth rates, and (7) a glossary of macroeconomic terms. Information on the United States' macroeconomy from 1929 to 1996 is presented in the dataset. The data are time series data obtained from the national income and product accounts constructed by the Bureau of Economic Analysis and from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Variables in the dataset include Gross Domestic Product and its components (investment, consumption, foreign trade, government purchases), price indices, productivity, national income and its components (wages and benefits, proprietor's income, rental income, profits, interest income), the labor force (unemployment rates, wages, racial breakdown data), the money supply (money supply, bank reserves, interest rates), production and stock indices, and federal finances and the budget.