Sunday, April 01, 2018
The Fed Chairman Game
Check out this game created by the Federal Reserve. It deals with exactly what we are studying right now, monetary policy. The game puts you in the position of the Fed Chairman, and you must manipulate interest rates in order to balance unemployment and inflation. Click on the learn more button before playing. Investigate the Fed Toolkit and the other items in the help section. After this play the game. Give me a short summary of your strategy and how it went.
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76 comments:
The game was interesting as it shows how the Federal Reserve adjust the fed funds rate with its affect towards the national unemployment rate as well as the inflation rate. At first my main goal was to keep on raising the funds rate but as i did that, the inflation rate lowered and the unemployment rose, which was not good as i wanted the inflation rate to be stable as well as the unemployment rate to decrease but not too much
At first I didn't have a strategy and just kept alternating between increasing the federal fund rate and decreasing it. However, this tactic resulted in high inflation. Soon I figured out if inflation got to high I should raise the federal funds, and if unemployment got to high I should lower the federal funds.It took a few tries, but once I understood the effects of the headlines, I figured out whether to raise or lower the Fed Fund.
Reba George
Period 1
Starting off i was just messing around with all of the buttons and was trying to understand and see what effected what. I realized that if i continuously increased and then decreased the funds, it balanced out all of the inflation and unemployment rate. However I also realized that the key is to only increase and decrease by small amounts, not big amounts.
Katarina Shanar
6th period
This game was extremely hard, not going to lie. This game basically has you manage the federal fund rate as a the chair of the federal reserves. When there was a lot of demand for US goods, I increased the federal fund rate. I increased the rates drastically until the unemployment and the inflation rates ran close to their optimal conditions. When unemployment raised above optimal conditions, increasing rates usually worked to lower it. I observed that unemployment and inflation rate have a indirect relationship, they were never parallel or going in the same direction.
Henry Feng (Head Economist at Chinese Hibachi Grill)
7th Period
This game was pretty difficult. It was hard to manage the economy and make it balanced. At first I was just testing things out and increasing and decreasing the federal funds , but then I learned that you need to decrease the federal funds slowly , and in small amounts.When I decreased the federal funds to 3.00 the economy became balance and inflation rate was about 2%
Mykaela Llacar
6th
The strategy I used was recoginizing the greater change created by a certain factor- inflation changed more than unemployment and so to control the inflation it was better to keep high rates. The Your Job section helped very much throughout the process as it was a game with difficult yet simple comprehend ability. To maintain a stable economy, inflation needs to be prioritized is what I maknly learned especially seem when I keep my rates near 3 or 4
Jibimon Noby
Pd1
My strategy for the game was to keep it at a 4.00 or some where around there bc that where I started off as and everything looked good. As something was about to happen I would make sure I didn’t change anything that much and if I had to I would change it by a little bit. In the end I won the game with the results of 5.55 unemployment rate and 1.11 inflation rate. I’m sure enough my strategy will work again for the future.
Elizabeth Melchor
2nd period
At first, the game seemed to do the exact opposite of what I intended. After a few tries, I realized the different headlines and what they mean. For my strategy, I adjusted the fund rates in small increments based on the different headlines and once it was going steady I didn't change anything.
Nia Eugene
6th period
My strategy for the game was to only increase or decrease the fed spending in small amounts. The inflation rate and unemployment rate inversely reacted to the changes in the fed fund rates so it was a real balancing act. As i increased the fed funding inflation increased and unemployment decreased. Also it was hard to predict what the next trend would be even considering the headline information we were given.
Angel Yeung
Period 6
Although the game is quite elaborate, ultimately it is really difficult to comprehend and use similarly to real life situations dealing with the economy. I started by decreasing and increasing the federal fund however I soon realized that simply raising the federal funds was the best option. Raising the federal fund not only decreased inflation but it also stabilized problems like unemployment. I also witnessed that inflation rates and unemployment have a indirect correlation because they were never going in the same direction. Therefore, I finally came to realize that the key is to change gradually and not by large increments.
Sahib Oberoi
Per. 2
My strategy at first was to change the fed fund rate in small increments, however when I would see that nothing changed and it continued on its same trajectory i would try to adjust the rate drastically until i would see a change. This eventually caused inflation and unemployment to deviate drastically and it would be very difficult to get hem back under control. In the end I would jut have to do small increments and wait for the new rate to take effect. After numerous failures i eventually got reelected.
The game provided an interesting way to see how interest rates and unemployment are connected. The game also gave an interesting viewpoint of the chairman responsibility of keeping the market stable. At first, when the game started I thought to just let the game go and let it play until something dramatic started to happen.Then I did big increments but that did not work out. I quickly learned that the best way to get change was to do little increments. Also reading the new little messages became helpful to predict the future.Using this new idea and several attempts later I finally got reelected.
Hannah Golding
1st
My strategy initially was to keep fed rates low since I didn't expect any drastic events to happen that might affect the economy. This worked for the beginning of the game until an oil crisis happened which jacked up the prices for oil. This immediately raised unemployment and inflation. To fix the issue, I tried to raise the fed rates only by a little, hoping it wouldn't take much to fix the economy but it only allowed it to get worse. Towards the end of the game, I jacked up the fed rates to 16% and that's when unemployment and inflation started turning back to its initial state.
Brandon Wong
7th
My primary strategy was to focus on inflation because it seemed harder to manipulate. But to do that, I would have to make radical increases in the budget, like jumps from 4 to 12, in one cycle. That strategy ended up overdoing the changes that I wanted, and made it hard to recover. One thing that I realized while playing is that there is a delay in your actions; any change that I made to the budget only seemed to take effect 2 cycles after. Because of that, I couldn't really come up with a definitive plan, since the game also hits the player with random scenarios. I finished most of my games with both inflation and unemployment being around their initial values, but maintaining both of them is almost impossible.
Anson Sam
6th Period
I followed the "wait and see" approach mainly. In the beginning I did not change the fed funds rate for 2 turns(quarters) -remained at 4%. Then I raised up the fed funds rate by .25% for quite a few turns and waited. Then I lowered the fed funds rate by .75% and waited until the game ended. In the end I have a low inflation rate of .94% with a considerably low unemployment rate of 5.13%. In conclusion, my unemployment rate rose by about .45%, while the inflation rate decreased by about 1.17% since the beginning of my term
Michael Ibay
7th Period
At the beginning of the game, I didn’t understand what to do, but I understood the concept after playing around with it. When I first started the game, I kept federal funds low (3.5) which decreased unemployment, but the inflation rate started to rise. When I increased the federal funds, inflation kept rising. Throughout the game, I saw that when I increased or decreased the federal funds to either lower or increase unemployment or inflation, the other half started to have negative effects.
Reeba Abraham
Period 2
I focused first on trying to keep the unemployment rate steady but then I realized I had to play around with the federal funds. I first kept the federal funds the same and then lowered them to see the differences in the inflation and the unemployment rate. Then I was informed that there was a major economic boom so I raised the federal fund rate at the end though that did not help. At the end of the game, I was not reappointed due to the major increase in inflation.
Nikita Damodaran
Period 2
My strategy was to focus on the inflation rate at the beginning of the game but I realized that it was better to focus on unemployment at the end of the game. I had large changes in inflation and unemployment but in the end, I ended at the target values. I had a recession as i kept the federal funds too high so I had to decrease it to allow for inflation.
Andrew Yang
7th.
I did not understand the game at first but all you had to do was play around with it and you can easily understand the game. I notice that when I lowered the funds rate unemployment went down but inflation went too high. When I increased the funds rate unemployment went up and inflation went down. The strategy I used was to make small changes the the funds and take action with caution. Also being mindful of the messages that I got.
Sumeyye Islamoglu
1st
The game was very difficult. I started by increasing and decreasing in drastic amounts and then saw where that got me. Clearly it didn't work. Once I understood the game I only changed the funds in small amounts. This balanced my unemployment and inflation. I also payed close attention to all the messages that came and changed the amount accordingly.
The game showed how important the Feds are to the economy. Every time I tried raising the unemployment, I would have had to lower the rates but that led to a drastic inflation rate increase and when I try to decrease inflation, unemployment goes up. To make sure that both inflation and unemployment are at target rates, you have to change the fed rates at incremental levels to make sure there is no crisis in the economy.
Paul Manavalan
7th Period
In order to succeed in this game, I had two strategies. The first was to make incremental changes to the funds rate to prevent drastic changes in both unemployment and inflation. The second strategy I had was to pay attention to any alerts the game might have had. Throughout the course of the game, there were changes in the value of the dollar and other various important factors that could affect my decision to raise or lower the funds rate.
Garrett Foresman
6th Period
The game was quite hard. No matter my strategy the first time around inflation seemed to rise. It showed how important the role the Fed has in the economy. The game started at 3.5 and I first decided to keep the rate as close to the original as possible. For the first 9 terms it worked with inflation and unemployment at a reasonable rate. then one round shot up and in an attempt to fix it, overcompensated for the inflation making matters worse. I realized that you have to change the feed rate at short levels to keep inflation in check.
Jessica Neal
2nd
When playing this game i had to play with the numbers a lot to understand what was going on. I learned that minor changes can have big affects on everyone and every change should be thought through thoroughly. It was difficult at first because i had no idea what i was doing, but when i got the hang of it, i had more fun. I started by focusing on interest rates but then learned unemployment rate was the easiest way to go.
Juliana Quintana
Period 6
This game is one that can leave you in a daze for sure. It is quite hard to beat the increasing level of prices that are rising all throughout the game. It illustrated the relationship between the economy and the government. I attacked the game as Keynes would have, by increasing the government spending to make sure that significant impact would result. However, sometimes investing in one particular thing can cut back on other significant rates and costs, leading to an under compensation. This is when things have to be kept at level to make sure that everything is accounted for.
Blesson Chacko
7th Period
This game is quite difficult, at first I did not understand how to play or what kind of strategy to pursue but later on I began to realize the purpose of this game. My strategy in the beginning was to not alter the fed funds drastically and to keep notice of the news alerts that came up during the game. I had no idea how important the fed funds are to the economy, but I soon realized while playing. I did notice that when fed funds decreased the unemployment lowered but the inflation increased vice versa, therefore I decided it was best to just minimize any changes to the fed funds during the course of this game.
Matthew Manalel
2nd Period
When I first started it was difficult to manage the inflation rate and the unemployment rate. I changed the fed fund rates in such large amounts that the economy began to encounter deflation. The headlines kept me updated of how the change affects the economy.
However, I got the hang of it and began to change the fed fund rates gradually, and this helped the economy reach somewhat of the natural and target range. Overall the game taught me how valuable feds are to the prosperity of the economy.
Erin John
Period 2
At the start I had no clue what I was doing. After my first few runs I was able to manage to drop Unemployment significantly, however, inflation continued to rise. I tried to use the headlines to my advantage and it somewhat helped guide me in the right direction. I learned that minor changes were causing major differences. After a few goes, everything seemed fine, unemployment was dropping, inflation was manageable, going up and down, but soon Inflation began to shoot up, and because I began to panic, I could not stop it from going up.
I really learned how big the Fed role is to our economy and how these little changes to the Fed Fund Rate could cause massive differences in our economy.
Mark Mufarreh 1st Period
I kept on an eye on the breaking news, which guided me by helping me decide if I should increase the federal funds rate or decrease it. When I wanted to bring unemployment down, I would just lower the federal funds rate, but this would cause inflation rates to increase dramatically. As a result, I tried to increase the federal funds rate, but this caused inflation to keep on increasing. At the end of my term, the inflation rate was about 8% while the unemployment rate was only 1.52% (both of which were very far from the target range).
Angella Baby
Period 1
At first I had a hard time keeping inflation rates and unemployment at a steady pace. If one would go down, the other would go up and vice versa. However, I began to raise and lower the fed funds rate at a more gradual pace and paid attention to the direction of the unemployment and inflation rate. The upcoming news helped me anticipate what my next move would be next. But even when I got a hang of it and learned some strategies, it was still hard to keep things consistent.
Irene Gratil
Period 2
In the beginning, I focused on the amount of inflation and unemployment, once I realized that changing the funds according to the amount of inflation and unemployment was not effective, I looked more towards manipulating funds according to the direction of inflation and unemployment. Paying attention to the overall trend was a lot better than looking at the amount because it was more steady if I payed more attention towards whether or not it was rising or decreasing as to whether or not it was high or low. The news also foretold whether or not the economy would take huge dips or surges.
Bonita Hall
period 6
At the beginning of the simulation my strategy was to increase the funds in small increments and view the results. I found that once inflation began to rise, it was nearly impossible to bring back down even when i decreased the federal funds to 0. Throughout the game, however, unemployment remained consistently low. I therefore concluded that inflation is what needs to be observed more because it can easily get out of hand. Also, once I started to analyze the headlines and implement changes around them, my economy began to stabilize a lot more. Observing inflation rates and important current events in the economy are key to having a stable economy.
Lujayna Taha
2nd
At first, I wasn't sure what I was doing. I had to go through a couple of runs to really understand what I was doing. It was difficult to manage the inflation rate and the unemployment rate. Even though I kept cutting funds, lowering the unemployment rate was tough. The headlines really helped me throughout the game. Looking at current events and understanding them well is most likely the best option for having a stable economy.
Abel Abraham
6th Period
My strategy for the game revolved around analyzing the headlines. The headlines give a decent insight on what to do and how it will affect unemployment and inflation. One strategy was to focus mainly on fixing inflation; once inflation remained steady at around 2%, the unemployment rate appeared to stabilize as well. Another strategy was to only increase and decrease the federal funds amount in small increments. In the beginning, inflation kept going up while I continuously cut federal funds down to a low amount. However, replaying the game I saw that it mainly focuses on keeping inflation regulated.
Bryanna Godfrey
Period 1
My expectations for this game ended up being totally wrong, balancing unemployment and inflation was surprisingly difficult. At first I tried to keep everything constant, only changing the rates if the news predicted trouble. I later learned that in order to get a long term effect, i would have to increase or decrease gradually to get the desired outcome to become permanent. In the beginning i tried to anticipate any issue from occurring, but that ended up hurting me in the long run, when i could not recover from the events that were happening. This game taught me how difficult it is to manage the economy, and that staying connected with society's events is crucial.
Gaby Bonus
P.2
This game is quite difficult, at first I did not understand how to play or what kind of strategy to pursue but later on, I began to realize the purpose of this game.It illustrated the relationship between the economy and the government. I increased the rates slowly as when increased/decreased exponentially I was rewarded with failure. When unemployment raised above equilibrium, increasing rates usually worked to lower it. I was able to recognize the relationship between inflation and unemployment as when inflation was around equilibrium, so was unemployment. The alerts provided by the game were very helpful in allowing me to recognize when to increase/decrease unemployment/inflation.
Javier Bermejo
Period 2
The game was pretty difficult and after playing through a few times I still couldnt quite get the hang of it. My strategy after my first attempt was to use 2 quarters on the base level of federal funding, 2 quarters on .50% higher, and 2 quarters on .50% lower. I observed the effects the raised and lowered rates had on inflation and unemployment. I found it difficult to balance both inflation and unemployment, though it was very clear that consistent federal fund rates over an extended period of time was really not the best approach. Eventually one will catch up with the other and force the federal fund rates to alter.
Roshni Jose
Period 1
As I started the game, I set the federal funds at 3.75 causing the inflation to rise but the unemployment fell. Soon after I reduced the federal fund down to 3.5 causing the economy to enter an expansionary phase with unemployment below 1.50% but the inflation rose to 8% so I decided to increase the federal fund to 5 then to 7 then eventually to 12 but inflation just continued to rise rapidly while the unemployment rate slowly started to rise as well because of the increase of federal funds. Overall, my strategy to handle each of them one at a time did not work because as soon as one thing started working the other would get out of control.
Edward Joseph
Period 2
The game was hard as I didnt get how to work it at first and just tried to keep everything the same unless I saw the unemployment or inflation moving too much in one direction or another. Eventually honestly out of pure luck I ended up winning the game and basically what I did was start high and slowly go lower and lower and eventually after a couple of tweaks I was able to win
Tammam Alhiraky
Period 1
To play this game, I at first began by playing around with the controls. once I finally figured out how to work the game, the news report banners came in telling me things like foreign economy and value of the dollar. I would slightly adjust the federal funds rate and wait to see which direction the graph went. If the graph showed higher unemployment and inflation, I would move the funds in the other direction. My strategy was basically slightly altering the federal fun until the graph showed me what I wanted it to.
Keegan Jones
7th period
This game was not easy as I learned quick as the head of the federal reserve. Inflation and unemployment were working against each other and it was difficult to reach their equilibrium. The more I played around with the game, the more I understood it and I would make small increases or decreases rather than drastic ones. My main strategy was to take it little by little and not to increase or decrease the funds by large measures or volumes.
Raza Muhammad
Period 2
I read some of the comments for strategies to use and I found out after a few tries that the game isn't as hard as people make it seem. I messed up the first few games but on my last, I got elected for another term. My strategy was to use the base level until inflation or unemployment would start wavering from the natural levels. Then I would cut or raise depending on which one I wanted to fix and once I did that, I'd find a fund rate that would keep them constant and redo the same steps if they fluctuated again.
Christian Young
Period 2
The strategy i used was amounts a crisis when both unemployment and inflation rose, i lowered interest rates to bring down the unemployment. Then later i would raise it a lot to lower inflation This strategy was simple and it mad me successful in keeping the economy running smoothly. It was a fun trying to get the expirence of a chairmen. I also tried lowering interest rates durring period of economic growth to see if it would help induce more growth
Hunter Boyd
Period 6
My first strategy was to go against the unemployment rate trend. I’m not entirely sure why I thought this would work because I ended up with a 9% unemployment rate. I followed up by laying attention to the news alerts and seeing how the inflation rate and unemployment would be affected by the fed rates. I saw that the consumers confidence was most important and impacted by the fed rate. Reaching a perfect balance was something I couldn’t get to.
Angelica Miranda
Period 2
The game was difficult in that it didn't allow a large increases or decreases in inflation along with unemployment rates. I had to tinker with it in order to get the hang of it but finding an equilibrium was hard. However, the trick was to go little by little on rates instead of a drastic sum.
Danielle Davis
period 6
When I began to play the game, I had no plan or specific strategy in mind but as I went along, I began to focus on the effects of what would happen as I adjusted the interest rates in the fluctuating economy. I found that inflation generally kept the economy stable when it was between the 2 and 3% range, and that drastic changes are never a good idea. In an ideal economy, things should change in small amounts so that everything else has room to adjust. Overall, the game was hard for me to figure out, especially when adjusting the federal funds rate.
Bailey Corley
Period 6
I kept the status quo for the first few quarters, but as the trends changed, I took drastic measures to correct. However, since the unemployment rate hit the high of the game (8% I believe), no matter how much I lowered the rate, the economy wouldn't bounce back. It felt as though mistakes had to be over-corrected and then that over-correction had to be corrected as the pendulum swung even more drastically. In conclusion I don't like this game very much.
Henry Zhang
7th period
I struggled understanding how to play this game. I began by playing around with the federal fund rates to soon discover the goal and trick to this game. I was able to figure out that if inflation rose, I would have to raise the federal fund rate. If unemployement rose, I would have to lower the federal funds. I did not enjoy this game and I wouldn’t play again.
Camila Ferrero
Period 1
Going into the game I didn't have a strategy in mind, I was just going with the flow. However, the further along I played the game the more challenging it became because inflation and unemployment didn't work together to create equilibrium. My main strategy was to just increase or decrease slowly instead of making drastic changes.
Angie Mancino
Period 6
At first going into the game I would raise and lower rate and funds at extremes to see the causes of these actions. As I watched inflation and unemployment skyrocket I soon began my plan on how to balance how much funds there were in order to keep things in a somewhat orderly fashion. Easier said than done however.
Erek Castro
7th
My strategy was to keep the inflation low and the unemployment near 5% by not making any drastic jumps from the 4.0 federal funds rate after learning that drastic jumps can have a huge negative effect that we don't want. I just stayed the safe route and I ended up with around 3% unemployment rate and around 6-7% inflation which pales in comparison when I first played with the game and got 14% inflation rate. Overall I didn't like the game as it was hard and frustrating.
Linda Zhu
7th pd
When I first began the game I had absolutely know idea how to play but then I reread your description of this blog and how you said that this game deals with what we are currently learning right now which is monetary policy. So with that thought in mind, I quickly went over the notes we took about monetary policy and I realized that in order to balance unemployment and inflation, I will need to lower interest rates to bring down the unemployment rate, and to bring down the inflation I would have to raise the interest rate. In order, to keep both unemployment and inflation at bay I would need to watch them very carefully to understand if I need to raise or lower the interest rate.
Maheen Meraj
6th Period
At first I started by raising the fed rates and that went fantastic until I realized high unemployment was bad. The inflation started going down which I thought was good until it hit -1% and realized in 16 quarters I had single handedly crippled the US economy. My strategy did not work at all and I was not reappointed. My final rates were -3% inflation and 7.07% unemployment.
Brian Rivette
Period 6
I found this game easy at first being able to keep the inflation rate at 2% and the unemployment around 5%; however as the game went on the task got more and more difficult and the economy became so unpredictable that no matter what I did inflation continued to skyrocket and unemployment continued to reach closer to 0%. I made no drastic cuts or increases in the federal funds it would bounce back and forth between the two. I was not able to figure out a strategy to maintain the 2% inflation rate and about a 5% unemployment rate. This task may seem easy, but it is definitely a challenge, for the economy can be really unpredictable.
Ashley Odstrcil
7th period
To begin i had no plan toward the game, i just played around and kept drastically increasing and decreasing the federal rate. However as the game went on i realizes that was not going to be successful, so i moves it gradually per time period so that my unemployment rate and inflation only change in very minimal amounts. Which resulted to me being more successful at the end.
Albert Tamdjo
Period 2
Starting the game, i increased the fund rate to about 10:75 which lowered the inflation rate down and brought up unemployment rate a little. After that i spiked down the fund rate to about a 3 which lowered the unemployment rate back to below 5% and decreased inflation. From there everything just went downhill as the oil prices spiked down and caused unemployment to spike up and inflation to go to the negatives. Playing this game made me realize that making drastic changes can have negative impacts so its better to take things slow by making small changes rather than huge ones.
Alan John
Period 2
I had a fairly easy time in playing this game. I would start with a base level interest rate, and then wait until either the inflation rate or the unemployment rate increased or decreased compared to where it was supposed to be. Next, I adjusted the rate until the object I was trying to fix was back to its normal rate. The trick is just to play around with the interest rate until the two variables get to where they are supposed to be.
Jerin Jose
Period 02
I thought that this game was extremely hard especially since i didn't have a strategy at first. However, as the game progressed, my main goal began to be to control inflation, but that required huge budget increases in a cycle. This strategy ended overdoing the changes which in turn made it a lot harder to recover. Also, whenever you do an action on the game, there seems to be a time delay which makes it so that the results of the actions you take are only seen 2 cycles after you do them. Therefore, it was hard for me to come up with a specific plan to follow, especially since a lot of the scenarios are very unpredictable. In the end, my values for unemployment and inflation were mostly around their initial values.
Benjamin Sunny
6th Period
My strategy throughout the game was to slowly adjust the fed funds by the direction of the inflation and unemployment rate. Also I looked at the news which had helped me choose my decision whether to increase or decrease the rates. Overall it was difficult to keep the lines at their equibrium point.
So my strategy was to use extreme swings in the rate in order to counter balance the growing rates. During the game it just started getting out of control once the crisis hit. At one point I've had the rate at 10% and at another I've had it at 0%. All and all it waa EXTREMELY hard to keep the unemployment and inflation rates on target. I have yet to win the game and get reelected.
Jahrid Clyne
Period 6
My original strategy of random guessing turned out to not work so I had to start actually working it out by changing the federal funds. By changing it only a tiny bit at a time, I was finally able to get the other rates to where they were supposed to. However, things like the time delay and unpredictibility made it extrememly hard to keep unemployment and inflation down.
Alisha Zuté Period 6
I initially didn't have a particular strategy going in besides trying to keep inflation and unemployment at equilibrium. I tried to adjust the rates according the the news which resulted in my unemployment rate being extremely low in the beginning and staying stagnant for the remainder of the game but my inflation kept rising. Overall it was difficult to keep inflation at the equilibrium.
Kollin Chang
2nd
My strategy was to lower fed funds when the economy was slowing down and increase when it when economy was doing well.Beginning the game, I was not sure how to adjust the rates to benefit the economy. But as I continued playing, I realized I could not plan ahead as surprising situations would cause the economy to change quickly. I also attempted to keep unemployment at the natural rate. In the end, I was confirmed for another term as chair of the federal reserve.
This game proved go be very useful.
Dhilan Patel
When the game first began, I decided to focus on keeping the inflation rate at the Fed's Target of 2%. I managed to do this but realized that an unintended consequence of doing this is that the unemployment rate rises. In order to lower unemployment I decreased the fed funds rate. Since the unemployment rate was significantly high, I continued to focus on lowering it. There was a point in which the inflation rate and the unemployment rate were no too far away from their targets, and so I decided to keep the fed funds rate constant for around 2 quarters. There was also an oil crisis during my term causing prices to increase greatly and so a lot of my focus towards the end of the game was to get prices to decrease again; this caused high unemployment. By this point of the game I realized that there will be major fluctuations in the economy as when you focus on one thing the other goes out of hand.
Ashwini Prabhu
Period 6
During this game, my "term" did not go to well. I spent too much time experimenting with how the federal funding actually affected unemployment and inflation. I noticed that after a certain time of bad conditions, it takes quite a drastic change in federal funding to cause any ripple within the economy. Towards the end, I failed to realize that I had a high rate of unemployment as well as deflation, so I was slow to fix this. At the very end, I had good conditions, because I finally understood that low inflation (deflation) is just as bad as high inflation.
Samuel Shteyman
1st Period
My experience with the game was pretty good. The strategy that I used was to just to keep the default federal funds rate until something in the economy went wrong. At this point, I then adjusted the federal funds rate a little bit at a time to prevent anything too drastic from happening. I kept the fed funds rate around 3.25% and 4.5% and ended up with the unemployment rate and inflation rate at or around their target rates and I was successful. However, I was then reappointed.
I played the game using two different strategies. My first game I followed the advice given, which is that increasing fed funds will reduce inflation and increase unemployment and decreasing fed funds will boost inflation and lower unemployment. When inflation was increasing, I increased fed funds, and when unemployment was increasing, I reduced fed funds. At the end of the time period, I did not get re-elected the position with the dollar value increasing sharply. The second game I just tried whatever I felt was right and I, again, did not get re-elected and the inflation was too high.
Stephen Iype
Period 1
My experience went well. I mostly followed the advice of the game. Increasing funds to reduce inflation and decreasing funds to decrease unemployment. However at some points i did kinda do my own thing just to see what would happen. After the first game i did not get re-elected but i played again and was able to get re-elected.
Matthew Benton 6th Period.
At the start I didn’t really know how to modify the rates to help the economy. But when I started to play, I realized I couldnt plan this in advance as unexpected situations would shift the economy to change quickly. My plan was to decrease federal funds when the economy was decreasing and increase it when the economy was doing well financially. I also tried to keep unemployment at the natural rate.
Jeslin Johny
1st period
At the beginning I first tried to lower the rates just to see what would happen. Everything was going smoothly when I would toggle the rates between 3.50 and 3.75 whenever either inflation or unemployment would go a way I did not desire it to go. Then the housing market crashed and things went haywire so I lowered the rates until unemployment got back down and then raised them again to fix inflation. For the last couple of quarters I used the wait and see method and I was elected for another term. It was a fun game and an eye opener to how hard it is to be a federal chairman.
Nicole Jean
1st period
My strategy at first was to decrease the natural unemployment rate which I felt was needed and to keep inflation as low as possible. However, inflation being in such low numbers and with so many people being employed, price pressures being the real concern as the workers had to get paid real money and stores having extremely low prices, I learned I had to increase the federal funds rate. There were a few tries where I just kept the federal funds rate the same to see what happens but either way, either inflation would be too low or unemployment would be too low or vice versa. I learned the economy was never in good shape and balance for too long. Therefore, I learned being the Federal chairman is never easy.
Divya Aaloori-6th period
At first, I drew my attention at the inflation rate line to see if I should lower or raise the rate. I went with lowering the rate and unemployment was low but inflation grew significantly. I couldn’t keep it under control the first round. The second was more controlled and I was able keep it consistent. This game really put what we learned to the test. I really Enjoyed playing it.
Amilcar Rivas
6th period
My first strategy was to increase inflation to lower the unemployment but that caused the job market to tighten it was interesting because we actually got to apply the concepts that you taught us.In the second one I just raised or lowered the inflation rate when unemployment was high or low to keep a balanced economy and the dollar increased in value.
Kenan Edwards
6th Period
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