Course 3 · Foundations
How an Economy Is Measured
经济如何被度量
How an Economy Is Measured is Kitalpha Course 3: 6 lessons, about 2.5 hours, free. Every lesson is anchored to a live Kitalpha record (U.S. calendar releases (GDP, CPI, PCE and the employment report), the real-GDP, CPI, unemployment-rate, payrolls and initial-claims series, and the published impact methodology). General educational information only.
What GDP counts and leaves out, how a real figure strips prices from a nominal one, what a consumer-price or jobs release reports and which agency compiles it, why some indicators turn before the wider economy and others after, and what the impact tier on a Kitalpha calendar row measures. Six lessons on live U.S. releases.
What you will be able to do
- Define gross domestic product and name its expenditure components, reading a live GDP release and the real-GDP series.
- Distinguish real from nominal GDP and explain how a price index separates output growth from price growth.
- Interpret a consumer-price release, telling headline from core and the CPI from the PCE price index, and name the agency behind each.
- Read an employment release, relating payroll employment, the unemployment rate and participation, and explain why two of its figures can rise in the same month.
- Classify an indicator as leading, coincident or lagging, using weekly initial jobless claims and the monthly unemployment rate as the contrast.
- Locate an indicator on the economic calendar and describe what its impact tier measures — realised Treasury moves on past release days — and what it leaves out.
Audience: Beginners; no prerequisites. Anyone who sees a GDP, inflation or jobs headline, or a release on the economic calendar, and wants to know what was measured, by which agency, over which period, and how the number is read.
Lessons
- 01 GDP: what counts and what is left out
Concept: GDP as the value of final output · 9 min · done
- 02 Real versus nominal GDP: separating price change from output change
Concept: real versus nominal GDP · 10 min · done
- 03 Inflation releases: the CPI and the PCE price index
Concept: which inflation gauge a release reports · 10 min · done
- 04 The labour market: two surveys, three numbers
Concept: the employment release's two surveys · 9 min · done
- 05 Leading, coincident and lagging: when an indicator speaks
Concept: indicator timing · 9 min · done
- 06 Reading the impact tier: a backward-looking measure, not a verdict
Concept: the impact tier as a computed statistic · 9 min · done
Spaced review
After each lesson, review sets fall due at 1, 7 and 30 days — cumulative, and interleaved across lessons and record types. Due sets appear here.
Mastery task
The course ends with a transfer task: 6 items on the newest Kitalpha record you have not seen, pass mark 80%. On a fail, the missed items map to their lessons and a review of those lessons is scheduled before a retake. A completion page is issued only on mastery. Go to the mastery task →
Optional: plan your study (once)
Write when, where and how you will study, plus one obstacle and how you will get past it. Stored on this device only.
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