In episode 6, we learned about GDP. GDP is the market value of all goods and services newly produced in a country in one year. There is also a think called GDP per capita. GDP per capita is the GDP of the country divided by its population. It represents output per person, and a country with a high GDP per capita is considered rich. Economists argue that the main reason some countries are rich is because of their productivity. The last thing we learned about is technology (in economics.) Technology is defined as the sum total of knowledge and information that society has acquired concerning the use of resources to produce goods and services.
Episode 7 is mostly about inflation and changing prices. We learned about purchasing power, which is the amount of physical goods and services that can be bought by a given amount of money. Another thing we learned about is a type of market phenomenon, a bubble. A bubble happens when asset prices surge to levels significantly above the fundamental value of that asset. Inflation can happen in many ways, but most common is there is too much money in the system, or there is a shortage of items. People track inflation using the Consumer Price Index, which shows how prices have changed between different years.
In the eighth episode we learned about fiscal policy. Fiscal policy is the way a government adjusts its spending levels and tax rates to monitor and influence a nation's economy. In the United States, Congress and the President handle that job. There are two types of fiscal policy, expansionary and contractionary. Expansionary fiscal policy involves increasing government spending or cutting taxes. Contractionary fiscal policy is the opposite, decreasing government spending and increasing taxes.